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Legendary director Mike Nichols, the recipient of numerous awards and responsible for some of the most memorable films in American cinema, died Wednesday evening at the age of 83.
Born Michael Igor Peschkowsky in Berlin, he moved to the United States in 1938 after fleeing the Nazis. He became a citizen in 1944 at the age of 13 while living in New York City. After briefly attending New York University, Nichols headed west to Chicago where he studied pre-med at University of Chicago. It’s at the university where Nichols began working in theater and met his longtime comedy partner, Elaine May.
After graduating from University of Chicago, Nichols moved back to New York to study with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. In 1955, he joined the Compass Players, a comedy troupe made up of Chicagoans (including May and ImprovOlympic co-founder and master improvisor Del Close). The Compass Players moved back to Chicago, where several of its members would form The Second City. Nicholas, however, began working with Elaine May, and eventually brought their comic stylings to Broadway with the show An Evening With Mike Nichols and Elaine May in 1961. A recording of the show, released the following year, earned the duo a Grammy.
Two years later, Nichols directed Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park. He won his first of nine Tonys for his directorial debut; he’d win another one in 1965 for The Odd Couple. In 1966, he made his film directorial debut with an adaptation of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which earned massive critical acclaim not just for its stellar cast (led by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor) but for its young director. The following year, he earned an Oscar for Best Director for the dark comedy The Graduate, a film that also launched Dustin Hoffman’s career.
Nichols was a rarity — a talent who was able to move in many creative fields, working in theater, film, television and on both sides of the camera. He is one of the few people to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony (he has 15 of those various awards altogether). As a theater director, he is responsible for some of the most important productions in the second half of the 20th Century, including the previously mentioned Barefoot in the Park and The Odd Couple, but also Annie, The Real Thing, and Hurlyburly. He also had the experience of working with some of the greatest actors and performers, including Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Gilda Radner, Whoopi Goldberg, Al Pacino, Emma Thompson, Kathy Bates, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Walter Matthau, Julia Roberts, and Tom Hanks.
Nichols left behind an incredibly legacy and and impressive resume that is unparalleled. Below, we list his greatest films and where to stream them online.
'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' (1966)
Real-life couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor star as George and Martha in the big-screen adaptation of Edward Albee’s Tony-winning black comedy about the rocky marriage of a college professor and his wife, the daughter of the university’s president, and their attempts to emotionally destroy another young professor and his unsettled wife. It was Nichols’ first film, and he earned an Oscar nomination for Best Director. [Where to stream Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?]
'The Graduate' (1967)
Perhaps Nichols’ most well-known film (and the one that earned him his only Oscar), The Graduate stars Dustin Hoffman as the titular young man who finds himself listless and lost after leaving college. He begins an affair with an older woman (played by the fierce Anne Bancroft), a friend of his parents’, only to then fall in love with her daughter. It features music by Simon and Garfunkel, as well as some of the most famous quotes in American cinema. [Where to stream The Graduate]
'Carnal Knowledge' (1971)
Nichols again explores masculine identity and sexual mores in this controversial comedy, which follows a pair of men (played by Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel) from their days as roommates at Amherst College to their middle age years as they fall in and out of love with a variety of women, including Ann-Margret, Candice Bergen, Rita Moreno, and Carol Kane. [Where to stream Carnal Knowledge]
'Silkwood' (1983)
Meryl Streep stars in this biopic about whistleblower and activist Karen Silkwood, who risked her life to speak out about negligence in the plutonium plant where she worked. Co-starring Cher (who, along with Nichols and Streep, received an Oscar nomination), the film is also the screenwriting debut of Nichols’ friend, Nora Ephron. [Where to stream Silkwood]
'Heartburn' (1986)
Nichols reteamed with Meryl Streep and Nora Ephron (as well as Jack Nicholson) for this comic drama based on Ephron’s autobiographical novel, itself inspired by her marriage and divorce to Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein. Streep plays a fictionalized version of Ephron who, at eight months pregnant, discovers that her husband is in love with another woman. [Where to stream Heartburn]
'Working Girl' (1988)
Melanie Griffith delivers a sweet and hilarious performance as the Staten Island-born-and-raised Tess McGill, a secretary in a Wall Street firm. Sigourney Weaver plays her aggressive and conniving boss, Katherine Parker, who tries to pass Tess’ ideas off as her own. When Katherine breaks her leg and is holed up in her home, Tess takes advantage of her absence and connections and seals her own merger deal. [Where to stream Working Girl]
'Postcards From the Edge' (1990)
Nichols directs Meryl Streep as another character based on a real person: this time, actress and writer Carrie Fisher. Streep brings a hilarious bitterness to her role of the actress Suzanne Vale, who is dealing with a recent release from rehab as well as her overbearing mother, a former musical comedy star played by Shirley MacLaine (and inspired by Fisher’s mother, Debbie Reynolds). [Where to stream Postcards From the Edge]
'The Birdcage' (1996)
Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, and Gene Hackman star in this modern-day Americanization of the classic French farce, La Cage aux Folles, written by Nichols’ comedy partner, Elaine May. Williams and Lane play a gay couple who, when their son announces he’s getting married to the daughter of an ultra-conservative politician, must improvise, and so Lane’s character relies on his drag skills to pose as the perfect American housewife. [Where to stream The Birdcage]
'Primary Colors' (1998)
Nichols again brings a highly successful novel to the big screen (another film written by Elaine May), this time the anonymously published satire Primary Colors (written by Newsweek reporter Joe Klein). Starring John Travolta and Emma Thompson as a Clinton-esque presidential candidate and his wife, the film skewers political idealism and the ruthless backstage deals taking place during a presidential primary. [Where to stream Primary Colors]
'Angels in America' (2003)
Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony-winning two-part play got the HBO miniseries treatment, and Nichols assembled an incredible cast that includes Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Mary-Louise Parker, Emma Thompson, and Jeffrey Wright (who reprised his role from the play’s Broadway production). A cerebral reflection on identity and loss at the height of the AIDS crisis, it’s an epic and faithful adaptation of Kushner’s brilliant work. [Where to stream Angels in America]
