Celebrated Film and Broadway Director Mike Nichols, Dead at 83
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Bryan Bedder/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Mike Nichols, one of the most celebrated and successful film and stage directors in American history, died Wednesday night at age 83. No cause of death was given.
Nichols directed some of American cinema’s classic films, including 1968’s The Graduate, for which he won the Academy Award for best director, his sole win out of a total five career Oscar nominations. His other films include Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, as well as Catch-22, Silkwood, Working Girl, Postcards from the Edge, The Birdcage, Primary Colors, and 2007’s Charlie Wilson’s War, his last film. He also directed the original Broadway productions of the Neil Simon hits Barefoot in the Park and The Odd Couple, as well as the 2005 Monty Python-inspired hit Spamalot, which won three Tony awards, including Best Musical and Best Direction of a Musical.
Born Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky in Berlin, Germany in 1931, Nichols’ family escaped Nazi Germany to America just prior to the start of World War II. He found theatre at the University of Chicago, where he also met soon-to-be-partner Elaine May. The pair performed as the improvisational comedy duo Nichols and May in the 1950s and early 1960s, releasing several Grammy-winning albums and performing a hit Broadway show together. May later wrote the film adaptations The Birdcage and Primary Colors, which Nichols directed.
After directing the original productions of the Broadway smash hits Barefoot in the Park and The Odd Couple, in 1966 Nichols directed his first film, the screen adaptation of the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the movie also was a smash success, and launched Nichols’ career as a film director. He also directed television, winning Emmys for his direction of the HBO adaptations of the Broadway hits Wit, in 2001, and Angels in America, in 2003.
Nichols is one of a select group of entertainers who have won the Academy Award, Emmy Award, Grammy Award, and Tony Award. He received the National Medal of the Arts in 2001, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2003, and the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010.
Nichols was married to ABC News journalist Diane Sawyer, whom he wed in 1988.
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