Posted on 11/20/2014 5:45:13 AM PST by Borges
Mike Nichols, one of America’s most celebrated directors, whose long, protean résumé of critic- and crowd-pleasing work earned him adulation both on Broadway and in Hollywood, died on Wednesday. He was 83.
His death was announced in a statement by the president of ABC News, James Goldston.
Dryly urbane, Mr. Nichols had a gift for communicating with actors and a keen comic timing, which he honed early in his career as half of the popular sketch-comedy team Nichols and May. He accomplished what Orson Welles and Elia Kazan, but few if any other directors have: He achieved popular and artistic success in both theater and film. He was among the most decorated people in the history of show business, one of only a handful to have won an Oscar, a Tony, an Emmy and a Grammy.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf and The Graduate was quite a one two punch to begin a film directing career.
For the general FYI, here’s a list of the films Nichols did: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001566/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1
The only ones I’ve seen are The Graduate and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but I’m familiar with most of the others.
With Glen A. Larson having died on Sunday, I see a potential trifecta on the horizon.
His sketches with Elaine May were about thirty years ahead their time and (IIRC I was a kid then and am basing this on memory). They were extremely clever send ups of the same kind of New York neurotics that Seinfeld turned into gold. The sixties really were a golden age for stand up comedy.
Was he either married to or associated with Elaine May?
They were a comedy team. I don’t think they were married (unlike Stiller and Meara) but I could be wrong.
I still have my old Nichols and May albums. We used to laugh all night listening to the albums and knew many of them word for word. Thanks for the memories.
Rest in peace.
End of the film. How many of us guys in our youth did not want to be all over Katharine Ross? The church is about 15 minutes from me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahFARm2j38c
San Dimas, right?
Elaine!!! Elaine!!!
Prayers to Diane Sawyer and other family members and friends.
I always thought Anne Bancroft a heck of a lot more sexy.
Read a lot of history and Hollywood stuff. Okay thanks. I remember asking my dad when we were driving around in LA who was Gower since some streets were named after people. Told me it was a famous dance team.
Way back when, he and Elaine May did a skit where Mike was mourning the loss of his uncle, and Elaine was a funeral director. She described their three tiers of service, which went along of the lines of .... At the top level, there was a walnut coffin, a harpist at the service, and a beautiful plot overlooking a lake. At the middle tier, the coffin was pine, a single soprano would sing at the service, and the plot would be in the middle of a large group of others. At the lowest tier, two guys named Guido would pick up his uncle from the hospital and do God only knows what with it.
Bancroft was only about six or seven years older than Hoffman. I thought she was sexier than Ross as well.
La Verne, CA
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