Aw, this one IS sad. Acclaimed film and theater director and all-around great guy, Mike Nichols is dead. He died suddenly on Wednesday. He was 83. ABC News president James Goldston said in a statement;
“He was a true visionary, winning the highest honors in the arts for his work as a director, writer, producer and comic, and was one of a tiny few to win the EGOT – an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony – in his lifetime. No one was more passionate about his craft than Mike.”
Nichols’s wife is of course, ABC News anchor Diane Swayer. His list of credits reads like the best entertainments of the last 50 years; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate (Best Director Oscar), Carnal Knowledge, Silkwood, Working Girl, Catch-22, Heartburn, Postcards from the Edge and The Birdcage; the Broadway hits Spamalot, Annie, The Real Thing, The Odd Couple and Plaza Suite, among others; and the HBO miniseries Angels in America.
He started out as a comic along with Elaine May, one half of the team, Nicols & May. Nichols told The New York Times in 2009;
“The greatest thrill is that moment when a thousand people are sitting in the dark, looking at the same scene, and they are all apprehending something that has not been spoken. That’s the thrill of it, the miracle – that’s what holds us to movies forever. It’s what we wish we could do in real life. We all see something and understand it together, and nobody has to say a word.”
Exactly. A master has left the building and we are poorer for it. Here’s a great clip from his masterpiece, as far as I’m concerned, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf? And if you need a laugh, go here to watch the perhaps inappropriate but hilarious “$65 Funeral” sketch Mike did with Elaine May on the Jack Paar Show.
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