Film and theatre director

Film and theatre director

Born: November 6, 1931; Died: November 19, 2014

Mike Nichols, who has died following cardiac arrest aged 83, was one of the most successful film and theatre directors of the last half-century, with a list of credits that stretched from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate in the mid-1960s to the Broadway production of the Monty Python musical Spamalot in 2005, by which time he was in his mid-seventies.

He had equal success with comedy and drama, maintaining that there was no distinct borderline between the two. "I have never understood people dividing things into dramas and comedies," he once said. "There are more laughs in Hamlet than many Broadway comedies."

He seemed to glory in the absurdity of life and returned to the themes of infidelity and the battlefield of modern relationships again and again.

And in doing so he provided meaty roles for a long list of actors and actresses, beginning with the four-strong cast of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, every one of whom was at least nominated for an Oscar. Liz Taylor and Sandy Dennis won.

Nichols steered no fewer than 17 different actors and actresses to Oscar nominations across the years - although Robert Redford was not one of them.

Several careers might have taken a different course had Nichols stuck with the idea of casting the young Robert Redford in the role of the sexually awkward young man seduced by his parents' friend Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft) in Nichols's sophomore film The Graduate in 1967.

Redford had screen-tested for the role, but Nichols's instinct told him it was just not working. Redford asked him why not. "Let's just put it this way - have you ever struck out with a girl?" said Nichols. "What do you mean?" asked Redford. "That's precisely my point," said Nichols.

Instead of Redford, Nichols opted for an unknown young stage actor by the name of Dustin Hoffman, even though he was edgy and uncertain at his audition, even saying he did not think he was right for the role.

But these were precisely the qualities that defined the character so vividly on screen. The film was the biggest hit of 1968 in North America and won Nichols his only Oscar.

Nichols was one of only a handful of people in the "EGOT Club", those who have won Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards.

He won a Grammy for best comedy album for An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May, back in 1961, four Emmy awards and no fewer than nine Tony awards, beginning with Barefoot in the Park in 1964 and ending with a revival of Death of a Salesman two years ago.

He was born Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky in Berlin in 1931. His father was a physician from Vienna, though his family originally came from Siberia. His mother's father was a famous anarchist and Nichols was supposedly also related to Albert Einstein.

His was a traumatic childhood. Firstly, when he was about four he lost all his hair in an extreme reaction to a whooping cough vaccination, and subsequently had to wear a wig. A few years later he fled Germany with his family to escape the Nazis and arrived in the US with only two English-language phrases "I don't speak English" and "Please don't kiss me".

He enrolled in "pre-med" at Chicago University, but was more interested in theatre and acting. He dropped out, studied at New York's Actors Studio and joined a Chicago comedy troupe, where he started doing improvisational routines with Elaine May.

They went on to establish themselves as a double act, appearing on radio and television and making several hit comedy albums, culminating in a show on Broadway and their Grammy win.

They split in the early 1960s and Nichols pursued a career as a director, initially on stage, scoring a huge hit with the original Broadway production of Neil Simon's comedy-drama Barefoot in the Park in 1963. He also directed the original production of Simon's The Odd Couple two years later.

Moving from theatre to cinema, he made a huge impact with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and The Graduate (1967). He was reputedly the first director to command a $1 million pay cheque, which he received for his third movie Catch-22 (1970).

He continued to work in cinema and theatre and occasionally television. His other films include Silkwood (1983), Working Girl (1988), Postcards from the Edge (1990), The Birdcage (1996) and Charlie Wilson's War (2007). His other Broadway shows include the original production of Annie in 1977.

One of his final films was Closer, a 2004 adaptation of a Patrick Marber play with Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Clive Owen and Natalie Portman playing two couples caught up in deceit and adultery. There were echoes of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate.

But it was certainly not as much fun as The Graduate and did not have the same impact as Nichols's earliest films, prompting him to comment on changing attitudes. "People my age, if you show them Brief Encounter, they weep and identify. If you show Brief Encounter to people now, they say, 'What's wrong with them?' Denying yourself and saying, 'We mustn't do this, we can't.' That's all over… It's all changed."

Nichols had his own personal ups and downs. Three marriages ended in divorce and he suffered a nervous breakdown seemingly as a result of addiction to medication for insomnia.

He married for a fourth time, to Diane Sawyer, a successful American broadcaster.

"My ultimate happiness began in 1988 when I married Diane," he said. "She is the perfect wife."

She survives him along with three children from the earlier marriages