Mike Nichols biography
Memoir
Son of Russian Jewish settlers, Mike Nichols spent his youth in New York. His studies in Chicago led him to meet Elaine May with whom he created, in 1957, the notorious ridiculous brace Nichols and May.
When they separated in 1961, Nichols successfully persisted in the theater, substantially in directing.
In 1966, Mike Nichols inked his first point film, the suspenser Who is Hysterical of Virginia Woolf?, which awarded Elizabeth Taylor the Oscar for stylish actress. The ensuing time, he verified his unseasonable gift as a director with Le Lauréat, a new public success which enabled its author to gain the Oscar for stylish director and Dustin Hoffman to be propelled to the rank of star.
Mike Nichols with Elaine May in 1960.
After these sensational debuts, the filmmaker struggles to confirm. In the 1970s, the suspenser Le Jour du dauphin or the slapsticks Catch 22, This pleasure that we say carnal and The Good Fortune meet a modest event, but the last two flicks cited allow him to begin his collaboration with Jack Nicholson, who’ll come one of his favorite actors.
After eight times of cinema silence, Mike Nichols returned in 1983 with the suffocating The Silkwood Riddle, with Meryl Streep, who relaunched it.
He continued with La Brûlure also plant public success in 1986 with Working Girl, or the turbulent professional rise endured by Melanie Griffith.
Relaunched, Mike Nichols also tackles all stripes. He directed the drama About Henry (1991), with Harrison Ford, also the fantasy film Wolf (1994).
But he also knows how to get into pure comedy with The Birdcage (1996), a remake of La Cage aux folles, or essay a political lampoon with a Primary Colors (1999) released in the middle of the “ Lewinsky affair”.
In 2004, he inked the sulphurous Closer, between subscribing grown-ups, with Natalie Portman, Jude Law, Julia Roberts and Clive Owen also returned to political lampoon in 2008, subscribing The War According to Charlie Wilson in which Tom Hanks played the eccentric politician of the same name..
In 2010, he won the Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute for Lifetime Achievement.
Private life
Mike Nichols was wedded four times in 1957, he married Patricia Scott, from whom he disassociated three times latterly in 1960, also, in 1963, he married Margo Callas, considered the “ poet” of the British minstrel Robert Graves; their union ended in 1974, after the birth of their son Daisy.
In 1975, Mike Nichols married the Irish pen Annabel Davis-Goff ( by) for a third time, with whom he’d two children, named Max and Jenny. The couple separated, also disassociated in 1986.
On April 29, 1988, Mike Nichols married his last companion, the notorious intelligencer Diane Sawyer, presenter of the ABC World News news program. They will remain wedded until the death of the director in 2014.
