Mike Nichols: A Life

by Mark Harris

A magnificent biography of one of the most protean creative forces in American entertainment history, a life of dazzling highs and vertiginous plunges--some of the worst largely unknown until now--by the acclaimed author of Pictures at a Revolution and Five Came Back

Mike Nichols burst onto the scene as a wunderkind: while still in his twenties, he was half of a hit improv duo with Elaine May that was the talk of the country. Next he directed four consecutive hit plays, won back-to-back Tonys, ushered in a new era of Hollywood moviemaking with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and followed it with The Graduate, which won him an Oscar and became the third-highest-grossing movie ever. At thirty-five, he lived in a three-story Central Park West penthouse, drove a Rolls-Royce, collected Arabian horses, and counted Jacqueline Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor, Leonard Bernstein, and Richard Avedon as friends.

Where he arrived is even more astonishing given where he had begun: born Igor Peschkowsky to a Jewish couple in Berlin in 1931, he and his younger brother were sent to America on a ship in 1939. The young immigrant boy caught very few breaks. He was bullied and ostracized--an allergic reaction had rendered him permanently hairless--and his father died when he was just twelve, leaving his mother alone and overwhelmed.

The gulf between these two sets of facts explains a great deal about Nichols's transformation from lonely outsider to the center of more than one cultural universe--the acute powers of observation that first made him famous; the nourishment he drew from his creative partnerships, most enduringly with May; his unquenchable drive; his hunger for security and status; and the depressions and self-medications that brought him to terrible lows. It would take decades for him to come to grips with his demons. In an incomparable portrait that follows Nichols from Berlin to New York to Chicago to Hollywood, Mark Harris explores, with brilliantly vivid detail and insight, the life, work, struggle, and passion of an artist and man in constant motion. Among the 250 people Harris interviewed: Elaine May, Meryl Streep, Stephen Sondheim, Robert Redford, Glenn Close, Tom Hanks, Candice Bergen, Emma Thompson, Annette Bening, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Lorne Michaels, and Gloria Steinem.

Mark Harris gives an intimate and evenhanded accounting of success and failure alike; the portrait is not always flattering, but its ultimate impact is to present the full story of one of the most richly interesting, complicated, and consequential figures the worlds of theater and motion pictures have ever seen. It is a triumph of the biographer's art.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Film, Biography Memoir, Audiobook, Media Tie In, Memoir

688 pages, Hardcover

First published February 2, 2021

About the author

Mark Harris’s first book, Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, was published this year. He writes the “Final Cut” column for Entertainment Weekly and has also written about pop culture for many other publications, most recently The New York Times, Details, GQ, Portfolio, The Washington Post, Slate, The Guardian, and The Observer Film Quarterly. A graduate of Yale University, he lives in New York City with his husband, Tony Kushner.

By the way: He is not the author of Grave Matters. That's a very good book by a different Mark Harris.

Reviews

[Violeta · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had been taken with Mike Nichols films even when I had no idea they were Mike Nichols’s. What I mean is that… when you are about 15 and you watch The Graduate on your country’s public television (the only one available until the late 80s), without so much as a film critic's allusion to its iconic stature, and you are transfixed for 2 hours, and the same thing happens later on when you watch Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (the drama of which couldn’t possibly resonate with your unscathed 20-year-old self), and later still when the comedy of Working Girl (finally) echoes parts of your life, and more or less the same happens over the years with everything you watch by him (and this time you know they are his films), from Carnal Knowledge to Heartburn, from Birdcage to Angels in America, from Silkwood to Wolf to Closer, his last gem of ménage a quatre… then you know that a good part of this director’s way of looking at life is also your own.

In Mark Harris’s excellent biography I found many answers to why I love Nichols’s outlook, the primary one being that he was someone who fully understood the precariousness of fate and love. I appreciated the straightforward yet respectful way the author chose to tell the story of a complex man, providing lots of fascinating glimpses into the adventure of the creative process. We are all used to seeing the finished product that, if it’s any good, tricks us into believing it was a smooth ride; it almost never is. The labour and logistics behind any production and collaboration of talented people are huge and this book does a brilliant job demonstrating it.

One more reason I loved Nichols’s persona: that man invented himself. Life casted him as the immigrant who narrowly escaped the concentration camps, a child who felt an outsider for most of his adolescence and early adulthood in an adopted country. He went on to create his own roles for himself as an actor & comedian, theatrical & film director, bon viveur & jet-set personality, art & thoroughbred collector, shrewd analyst & anxious analysand, patron saint of actors & businessman, restless partner & loyal husband and friend. He conscientiously acted out all the parts on the phantasmagorical stage his life was.

"Mike was the last of a certain kind of cultural celebrity. Someone who could travel between film and theatre, who understood art and politics and fashion and history and money. A man of the world and of his century.”

P.S. In September 1962 Harper’s Bazaar came out with an audacious fashion shoot. Richard Avedon, one of Nichols’s lifelong friends, photographed that year’s Paris collections like a fabulously vulgar tabloid story with Nichols and Suzy Parker (top model of the era) as its protagonists.
“Riffing on the scandal stirred up by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s adulterous affair during the filming of Cleopatra in Rome earlier that year, he staged a liaison between the actor and the model in Paris as costars of a nonexistent film, Napoleon and Josephine.”
From Issues: A History of Photography in Fashion Magazines

As my friend Antigone said in the comment thread of her own gorgeous review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..."…the photos mirror the tone of the book in surprising ways!”
Here are some I found online:

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audiobook…read by George Newbern who was outstanding
…..20 hours and 35 minutes

I’ll say straight out….this isn’t a book or audiobook I’d recommend….BUT I DO RECOMMEND it …..I just won’t go out of my way — knowing I could be wasting my breath ….knowing not everyone wants to listen to 20 plus hours about Mike Nichols life …..
Most people would just rather watch ‘The Graduate’ again.

My own personal history of watching the movie - The Graduate - (the first time), in a movie theater in Berkeley, has many associations for me.
I was still an intentional virgin. Jewish girls in my family were hit over the head with messages that we should be a virgin until marriage.
But I was getting older - in college - [ it was summer break]….and I was experiencing wonderful young love and sexual desires
I even challenged my mother with the ‘why-wait’ conversation —she was the first person I confessed my sexual - unmarried sins to….
(She forgave me)….
So….ploughing ahead…I devoured sex…(making up for lost years)…It was my Summer-of-Love experience until it wasn’t.
Being with Richard was filled with tons of sexual pleasures - explorations under waterfalls, showers, kitchen tables, on beds too.
Sex was my daily summer staple. I had little interest in food.
I was a very responsible virgin.
Richard and I went to planned parenthood together in Berkeley- [this was during the 70’s]….
I paid $25 for the Dalton Shield IUD (not recommended for women who were virgins)….and was later called back - as women were dying from it….…[7 years later still with that overdue IUD - while in the UK…news broke out: “remove it women”]….so I did. But I never had any problems with it.
Back in Berkeley….the planned-parent people told me to wait three days before having sex….
So….THAT DAY (evening)….Richard and I went to see ‘The Graduate’….
And waited the three recommended days.

My desire to invest time with this book was for my own selfish desires — nostalgic memories ….a looking back. Filled in holes of things I didn’t know, was the icing on the cake.

I can’t say that I retained every single thing I listened to in this audiobook. I didn’t take notes…. I simply just enjoyed being entertained….I found it comforting and relaxing to listen to…
I learned a lot. I enjoyed a lot.

It’s an incredibly ambition book at over 600 pages..….”sprawling and intimate”…is one way to describe it.
It’s filled with stories about family history, relationships, marriages, fun ordinary stories - eating - childhood history I found fascinating, gathering with friends - his directing style was one of trusting himself first - beyond other opinions…..and it mostly worked for him…
his divorces, (two by age 32), his long time friendships, love interests, his career as a director, actor, producer, comedian…in theater and film…..and TONS of awards….but most …TONS of enjoyment about his personal and professional life.

Mike Nichols left behind a very impressive career legacy. He also grappled with his own demons of depression addiction….
His personality ran hot and cold….but to me — he seemed like a very easy man to like….besides admire.

I couldn’t end this review without mentioning two other legends -
the late Neil Simon (died in 2018)….
And Stephen Sondheim….who died just a week ago - Nov 26, 2021.
All three of these great brilliant men were friends, collaborated at different times, socialize, and all were bigger than life entertainment contributors …..
All these men left a hole — all were one of a kind —

Kudos to the writers who put in diligent research to compile books like these — tributes to these talented souls who delivered phenomenal work.
Kudos to author Mark Harris who wrote ‘this’ biography…..written beyond well!

[Toni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Note: The published book has fantastic photos!

When you read that Mike Nichols is one of the few people who have won the ‘EGOT’ (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards), it would be difficult to imagine him as the awkward, gangly, friendless kid back in his early days in New York City. There is nothing worse than being all of that, plus Jewish, unable to speak English, and completely hairless. Nichols, when given a vaccine for whopping cough back in Berlin, had an allergic reaction that resulted in a complete and lifelong inability to grow hair. His father refused to buy him a wig, so he wore a cap constantly. Make no mistake, kids were bullies back then too, and they teased him mercilessly. Michael was just seven years old, and his brother, Robert, three, when they sailed from Germany to New York, alone, in 1939 to meet their father who had arrived just months earlier. His father was able to set up his own practice where the family lived in the small apartment upstairs. While they weren’t as comfortable as they had been in Germany, they were grateful to escape the Nazis and live peacefully in America. Unfortunately, conditions changed when his father died from leukemia just five years later at the age of forty-four, a result of working as an XRay technician, unshielded from radiation they emitted, while he waited for his US medical license. Without his father’s practice, the family slipped almost into poverty.

As many of his peers went off to college, Mike had to find a place that would accept a bright student without a high school diploma. Fortunately, that place existed as the University of Chicago, where life really began for Mike. His world opened as he met other intellectuals as himself, well read, willing to discuss and debate any topic with sharp minds and biting wit as his. It’s also the place where he met his female counterpart, Elaine May, whose smoldering anger, and quick intelligence matched his own. Mike was already involved in the improvisational troupe which would become, ‘The Compass Players,’ predecessor of ‘The Second City,’ when he and May would team up and develop some of the freshest comedy routines heard in years. They fed off each other fluidly, as if they could read each other’s mind, it seemed almost effortless. They became the comedy duo ‘Nichols and May’ and took Chicago and then Broadway by storm. Their first of three albums won a Grammy in 1960. Then, they split up the duo in 1961.

This break led to Mike’s involvement directing plays, by 1965 he had three Tony awards for ‘Barefoot in the Park,’ ‘Luv’ and Neil Simon’s ‘The Odd Couple.’ Hollywood wanted him but he knew nothing about cameras, so he asked his friend Anthony Perkins to give him a crash course on movie cameras of that era. By 1967 he famously directed Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?’ and an unknown actor, Dustin Hoffman in, ‘The Graduate.’ These plays and films started a seven-decade long career of an exceptionally long list of plays, films and TV shows too numerous for this review. You will undoubtedly recognize most of them and may have seen many of them. This is why you must read this book. Mark Harris discusses how these giant entertainment marvels came into existence, which actors said yes or no, who was fired and then who replaced that actor. Best of all, which actors were really pleasant to work with and which were the really difficult ones. Yes, of course there are many pages, there is a lot to cover. Mike directed or produced twenty-five (25) Broadway plays, twenty-one (21) Films, give or take, and approximately six television shows. The man was a genius and beloved by many. He was married four times but his last to Diane Sawyer was the match made in heaven. They married in 1988 and were together until his death in 2014.

A book you will enjoy every minute reading.

Thank you, Edelweiss, Penguin Press, and Mark Harris

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I soared through Harris' remarkable biography like an arrow in flight!

But then, I've always felt a unique affinity towards Nichols - not for who he was as a person (his real personality always seemed elusive; the bio largely explains why) but because of his directorial style. I've seen (nearly) all of his films (some of them over and over) and was lucky enough to see a number of his NY stage productions.

His scope, of course, put him in a class by himself. Not only was he a gifted performer but - generally speaking (meaning, aside from his occasional 'bombs') - he was equally at home as director of both theater and film. Smart, sophisticated - at his best, he was incomparable. Some say he had no recognizable style but his hid in plain sight. As Harris relates:

"Style," he said, "is a way of doing everything in a play so that all the things called for by the author can actually happen."

The same applied to film. And especially to actors - the 'authors' of their own work. Nichols was well-known for doing what was necessary - drawing them out - in order for actors to show themselves at their very best. That was maybe less surprising in the case of someone like Meryl Streep (whom he worked with several times, including guiding her through several roles in 'Angels in America') - but it's significant when you think of the sterling work done by Ann-Margret in 'Carnal Knowledge', Cher in 'Silkwood' and Melanie Griffith in 'Working Girl'. None of them (though sometimes good) were ever better than when they worked with Nichols.

If, by chance, you have ever (maybe on YouTube) seen Nichols interviewed or chatting with his longtime collaborator Elaine May, you will probably not be aware of how he felt about talking in public. Or, more to the point, about being in his own skin in a non-working environment. Harris clarifies:

"I think people try to become famous because they think, 'If you can get the world to revolve around you, you won't die.'" he remarked at the time. But his dry detachment was a posture--the only acceptable mode of self-preservation for a young man who wanted a great deal but had, since his first day at the University of Chicago, taken great care never to look or sound too excited about anything.

Throughout this meticulously prepared and immensely readable story of a life, Harris approaches Nichols in a way not unlike that of a respected psychiatrist who, in turn, has nothing but admiration for his patient. Many Nichols fans will come to this book having known almost nothing about the extent of his insecurities. It seems that, the more renowned Nichols became, the less he felt he knew - which led to battles with self-doubt:

And he started to try to understand why his life had felt like a cyclical series of ascents and crashes. "You work better and better and you feel okay about it and people seem to go for it," he said, "and then [depression] comes creeping in, and you don't know when it started."

When Harris approached Nichols' widow Diane Sawyer for her consent to his project, she gave it without conditions, saying nothing was off limits, and did not request pre-publication approval. So he was free to deploy a 'warts and all' strategy.

Still, in spite of how satisfying this bio seems in terms of what it reveals, it may still (to a degree) mystify. ~ esp. when it comes to the one aspect which - along with the enigma of being human - dominated his work:

Nichols prodded his actors to explore the story's darkest ramifications. "To me, it's about how mysterious sex is," he said. "Sometimes it's great. Sometimes it's not so great, but it's still great ... It can ruin you, it can make people lose everything they have ... but if anyone understands it, I don't know them."

[Antigone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mike Nichols, esteemed director, producer, actor and comedian, legendary light of stage and film, passed away on November 19, 2014 at his home in Manhattan. Mark Harris must have hit the ground running to create what is sure to be the definitive biography of this extraordinarily talented man - and have it published (to serious acclaim) a mere seven years later. It didn't hurt that everyone who knew Mr. Nichols, who lived with him or worked with him in some form or fashion, opened their hearts and minds to the project. What we have here is Cooperation City, which is, frankly, shocking when one considers the circles he ran in and the aristocratic strata of life he inhabited so fully. Those doors so often close to requests for a posthumous memory or insight. They didn't here.

This may be due, in part, to the caliber of writer making those requests. Harris charged onto the scene with a study called Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, in which he selected one year's nominees for the Best Picture Academy Award and dissected each film as it marked the transition of the American cinematic form. A brilliant opening act that you can be sure everyone who was anyone in the artistic community read. And so, he was a known quantity whose discernment, skill, and respect of these industries boded well in a biographer for the much beloved, and rather complicated, Nichols.

This is a big book by any definition, and it reads beautifully. I found myself turning page after page, eager to reach the intelligence behind the next Mike Nichols production in a lengthy list of important work that I remembered so well. From those early days of Nichols and May, through films like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate, Carnal Knowledge, Silkwood, Heartburn, Working Girl, The Birdcage, and the HBO adaptation of Angels in America - all were particular high points for me. Understand, too, that Mike Nichols had close, long-standing relationships with some pretty incredible women - numbering among them Elaine May, Nora Ephron, Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, and Diane Sawyer. That's a heck of a list, and speaks to a personality I thought intriguing enough to explore. This biography, from the outset, was sure to hit my sweet spot.

Happily, it did...and a wee bit more. A fascinating man. Wise. Sad. Startling in his excess. A worthy account, and recommended for sure.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

An exhaustive account of Nichol’s projects but not very much about his life. It really read more like a history of his work and not a biography to me. Aside from his childhood and some of his work with Elaine May, his personal life, habits, thoughts are a mystery. I never got a sense of who he was as a person. Oddly, I got a solid sense of what many actors he worked with were like but not Nichols. I’ve never read a biography with such little insight or depth given to the subject’s personality.

A lot of the book was just a recounting of the minutia of his various projects (not all projects got equal billing and some that you thought would be the most in-depth were not—and I’m still wondering how he got into television exactly) and then suddenly he was getting divorced or married or it was mentioned he was doing crack regularly or hadn’t seen his child for most of her childhood. What? No mention on how his interpersonal or professional life was affected by his apparent heavy substance abuse or what his personal relationship with pretty anyone was really like.

Very odd take on a biography, it would have been better if they had not pretended it was a biography and focused what it really was about, the work of Mike Nichols, not Mike Nichols the man.

[Matt Goldberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another incredible book from Mark Harris, who has once again shown us that he is easily among the foremost film historians of our time.

I didn’t realize how little I understood about what it means to direct actors until I read this book, and I think the reason Nichols doesn’t get his full due among the mainstream is because you can’t easily see what he’s doing. It’s not like Kubrick or Hitchcock who are hitting you with so much visual language. Instead, Nichols’ gift was understanding actors in such an intimate way that he could transport you through the power of performance (although I should note that Nichols’ absolutely had an eye for some really impressive visuals).

This book is a gift; another meticulously researched and yet fully humanistic tone that approaches its subject with love without trying to hide the blemishes. Anyone who writes about film should aspire to do it as well as Harris.

[Hank Stuever · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deeply reported, finely written, reliably inside Hollywood/Broadway biography by someone who writes those better than just about anyone around today. What struck me was the degree to which Mike Nichols, by power of his personality and talent, spent his entire life pretty much doing only the work he cared about and wanted to do. It was hard, but he always loved it. Think about that next time (today, tomorrow, next week) you're doing work you only sorta care about. This book is a chance to really bask in the life of someone who had that freedom. No matter his lows, it was all pretty much highs.

[William (Bill) Fluke · Rating 2 out of 5]

What I knew about Mike Nichols before reading reviews and recommendations on his biography: nothing, didn’t recognize his name. What interested me to want to read Mike Nichol’s biography: he seemed to be a very acclaimed director of many plays and movies, including an all time great movie- “The Graduate”- and his story was one of overcoming setbacks. After slogging through 600 pages of this Mike Nichol’s biography what do I think of the book: another biography that is more concerned with covering ALL that the subject did in his life rather than going deep on ANYTHING. Not what I want out of a memoir or a biography. Rather than read a record of every play, movie ,actor, writer, colleague ( which you get) I would have preferred more background and depth on his nervous breakdown, his issues with drugs, the people who he didn’t get along with etc. You’ve heard the term “ a mile wide , an inch deep”. That is how this book comes across. Biographer Mark Harris seemed to have full access to the many people that Nichols worked with and was closest to, but if he turned over any stones to really get beneath the man of Mike Nichols, his editors kept it out of this book- and at 600 pages there was much that could have been cut to make room for a closer inspection of some things. Perhaps fans of theater/ Broadway might appreciate this bio more than me with all the minutia it provided on staging and rehearsals and workshops. Now I do know of Mike Nichols, but not much of him that will stick with me.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picked it up. Put it down. Considered abandoning for whatever reason. But picked up and gave another chance and couldn't put it down, wondering why I had done so first time around. I remember being reduced to tears, at a somewhat early age, when introduced to Elaine May and Mike Nichols during their Omnibus presentation of the funeral preparations skit. I'd never heard anything that funny. I remember his successes with his first films, following him through his Broadway directorial career (but sadly never saw him live), and surprise at his almost solo turn as the Designated Mourner. But he'd always resided in the pantheon of untouchable respect. This book presents Mike Nichols from his early life and all his insecurities, his idiosyncrasies, his life off and on the stage and his superb body of work. As with Must You Go, a book I read earlier about Harold Pinter by his widow Antonia Fraser, there is a cast of thousands of friends, acquaintances, their circles creating a veritable who's who creative people of the time. So glad I went back.

[Glenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

An magnificent biography. Full of wit, insight, compassion. Harris understands show people better than any other critic alive and chronicles their foibles with both precision and compassion.

[Maine Colonial · Rating 5 out of 5]

This penetrating biography of director/actor/comic Mike Nichols is at least as much about his method, especially his directing method, and about the nitty-gritty of the many plays and movies he directed. Here’s a list of his plays and movies:

PLAYS
Barefoot in the Park
The Knack
Luv
The Odd Couple
The Apple Tree
The Little Foxes
Plaza Suite
The Prisoner of Second Avenue
Uncle Vanya
Streamers
Comedians
Annie (producer)
The Gin Game
Billy Bishop Goes to War
Fools
The Real Thing
Hurlyburly
Social Security
Waiting for Godot
Spamalot
Death of a Salesman
Betrayal

MOVIES
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
The Graduate
Catch-22
Carnal Knowledge
The Day of the Dolphin
The Fortune
Gilda Live
Silkwood
Heartburn
Biloxi Blues
Working Girl
Postcards From the Edge
Regarding Henry
Wolf
The Birdcage
Primary Colors
What Planet Are You From?
Wit
Angels in America
Closer
Charlie Wilson’s War

Nichols worked with so many big-actors, but he forged especially close relationships with Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson. He loved working with women, and for that, some male reviewers were dismissive. Several couldn’t understand why he would bother making a “women’s picture” like Heartburn, especially one that made the husband look so bad. (Lovely, huh?) Natalie Portman said Nichols was a genuine feminist and “the only older man who mentored me without there ever being a creepy element in it.”

A thread throughout his entire adult life is his relationship with Elaine May. They met at the University of Chicago, and that’s where they honed the comedy routines and improvisations that made them famous. The intensity of their connection made it impossible for them to continue as a duo indefinitely, but they remained friends for life and she often helped him out with productions, including writing several script adaptations.

The book made me do a lot of Googling, which led to watching many videos, including Nichols and May bits and, my favorite, her hilarious tribute to him at his AFI Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony.

This is a fascinating personal portrait and inside-Hollywood/Broadway tale.

[emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

delving into the mike nichols we know, love and miss, this is a beautiful tribute fit for a man who shone so brightly in his areas of expertise that his impact on theatre, film and television laments him as one of the greatest to ever do it. from his journey to america and his childhood to details into his long-standing career to personal anecdotes from a wide range of actors and creative partners he cherished, this brings you closer to a man who, although no longer us, will remain a part of our lives forever through the work he left behind.
written with so much heart behind the words, mark harris has created something special here and something i feel richer for reading.

“i fear getting to the end of my life and feeling i’ve wasted it. i don’t want to get to the end and think I haven’t tasted enough and touched other people enough and had a good enough time.”
in old age, that fear had vanished. all of his desperate urgency had given way to a serenity he had taken a lifetime to find. at one of his favourite restaurants, he had lunch with a friend whose son was about to go out on his own; he was looking for some advice he could share. did he have any wisdom to offer?
he thought for a moment.
“well,” he said, “just so long as he knows that things that start out poorly don’t always end poorly.”
he thought some more.
“that,” he said, “and study improv.”

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mark Harris hits another home run with this highly absorbing, gracefully constructed biography of a fascinating showbiz legend. I grew up on the brilliant 1960 comedy album An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May (my parents exposed us to lots of such records as they liked to laugh) so my interest in this book was predisposed, but man what a long, winding not to mention glittering career Nichols had. Though I actually don't much like hardly any of the films he made after Virginia Woolf, The Graduate and Carnal Knowledge, I'm now totally on track to rewatch some of his 80's & 90's oeuvre for some reassessing, thanks to this. Long and short of it, if you enjoy indulging in celeb bios & mainstream pop culture studies you cannot go wrong with this meticulously researched volume, or any of Harris's other books for that matter. Grade A all the way ~

[Michael Ritchie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not a particular fan of Nichols work, but this book is one of the best celeb bios I've read in some time. Well-written and deeply researched, this brings Nichols to life on the page and it makes me want to go back and revisit movies like Catch-22 and The Fortune to see what I might have missed the first time. Harris's previous movie books (Pictures at a Revolution and Five Came Back) are both great reads as well.

[William Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Attn: Mark Harris - STOP TWEETING AND DEDICATE ALL YOUR TIME TO YOUR WORK. You’ve written three straight masterpieces. I want at least three more!

[Jim Gladstone · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides a thorough reminder of Nichols' remarkable 5 decade-long impact on American theater and film. The behind-the-scenes looks at his projects, from THE GRADUATE to ANGELS IN AMERICA, are priceless, and the amazing network of fellow artists he collaborated and clashed with, from Elizabeth Taylor to Whoopi Goldberg is fascinating to trace, guided by Harris, who is remarkably efficient at leading readers along the tangled paths of Nichols' interwoven careers as director, performer and producer. Harris' explanations of Nichols' directorial style—which was rich with psychological insight about both characters and actors—are perhaps the best passages in the book. What's disappointingly absent is much real revelation or explication of Nichols' own psychology and personal relationships beyond the long-lasting residue of his childhood. His crucial relationships with Elaine May and later with fourth wife (for 25+ years) Diane Sawyer remain cryptic to the reader. The emotional engines of his relationship with Sawyer, especially, are particularly elusive. Harris (the husband of Tony Kushner) only gingerly touches on Nichols' sexuality, despite assertions by Richard Avedon, one of his closest friends, that the pair had a longtime love affair and the essentially long-distance nature of Nichols' relationships with his quartet of wives. I wasn't hoping for anything lurid or salacious, but this volume just doesn't dig as deeply into what made Nichols tick. He sometimes comes across as a baby and a diva; he's sometimes generous and sometimes remarkably stingy; he seems obsessed with status as much as art; he displays strokes of genius and wide stripes of misanthropy. All fascinating, but not all tied together with a coherent authorial theory about his overall driving force, motivations or Achilles heels. A great and well-organized compendium of facts with not enough reflection or interpretation for this reader.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful, beautifully written biography of Mike Nichols who made great movies, plays, and comedy skits. I found myself slowing down my reading to savor the prose.

[Kevidently · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t know much about Mike Nichols when I picked up Mark Harris’s new book. I was familiar with Nichols & May due to a steady diet of Doctor Dimento as a youth. I was vaguely aware that he’d directed The Graduate, and that was because of Harris himself; I’d read his Pictures at a Revolution and was bowled over by it. Nowadays, I’m usually willing to trust an author I like, no matter what they’re writing about. That keeps working out for me.

I wonder if knowing only a little bit about Mike Nichols worked in my favor, because the whole book was a continuing journey of discovery. We get the whole narrative, from his early days of working on two-person sketch comedy and improv with Elaine May, to his initial terror of directing plays and then movies, to his strings of hits and misses, to his uneasy time as an elder statesman. But it doesn't read like a novel, because Nichols's was idiosyncratic, and messy, and sometimes intense.

I'm not sure if it's endemic to how Hollywood works (or used to work), but the way Nichols takes on huge projects seems almost accidental. Sometimes he stumbles into things. Sometimes he dares a studio to pay an outrageous salary, daring them to not hire him. Sometimes he basically begs to be convinced. It's as if, at least sometimes, he wants someone to drag him into something so that he'll have something to prove.

Once he's inside a film or a play, Nichols usually seems to have a grasp on his talents. Before and after, he is a complete wreck. But that's not always, and that's a big part of the mystery of Mike Nichols. Anything can affect his confidence: drugs, weight gain, poor health, a misunderstanding of the project or the actors he's working with. Almost always, a project eventually clicks with him and that's satisfying. The few times when he seems completely at sea is so frustrating, but it makes you root for him more. That's one of the best things about this book: no matter what Nichols is doing or has done, you always root for him.

And I have to applaud Harris for not taking the "greatest hits" way out of things. Often, when I read biographies about people, the focus is either on only their early career, with a gloss on the later stuff, or a "they did THIS!!!! and then a bunch of stuff for years and THEN THEY DID THIS!!!" Harris is just as fascinated as why The Graduate worked and why, in his opinion, Wolf didn't. (By the way, did you know Mike Nichols directed Wolf, with Jack Nicholson!? I didn't! Wow!)

Thoroughly engaging, absolutely entertaining, and reverential and critical in equal measure, Mark Harris' Mike Nichols: A Life is a terrific book, one of the best I've read so far this year. Highly recommended.

[Jarrett Neal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mike Nichols is what happens when talent, timing, and luck intersect. From his days as the second half of one of America's top-notch comic duos to directing an era-defining film to proving his creativity and force as one of Broadway's impresarios, no one can deny that Nichols was a seminal figure of the twentieth century. But beneath his many contributions to stage and screen was a man as insecure, fallible, and hopelessly flawed as any of us.

Mike Nichols: A Life is so much more than a biography. In creating an expansive and meticulous story of Nichols's life, Mark Harris also gives readers a panoramic view of Hollywood and Broadway from the fifties through the 2010s. Nichols seemed to be everywhere. As much I as knew about Nichols prior to reading the book, I hadn't a clue that he was the first to direct stage hits like Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, and Plaza Suite. Yet for each success he had, Nichols also suffered great failures and embarrassments. What I like about this biography is that it gives readers a real look at what goes on behind the scenes to mount a play or get a film made, all the hand-ringing about budgets, casting, scripts, locations, you name it. Nichols was a tactician, a visionary, and a gambler, a director who cared deeply about the craft of acting and who believed in his guts that actors should always tell the truth. He wasn't a director who fit all personalities, but he had many more hits than failures.

For movie lovers, this book will prompt nostalgia for the old days, when studios made films for intelligent adults--not eye candy about superheroes--and talent, both in front of and behind the camera, mattered. Reading stories about the actors Nichols hired and fired may surprise some readers. Indeed, more than a few actors gave Nichols fits. Walter Matthau and George C. Scott come off particularly bad in this book. Conversely, Nichols had nothing but love for Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, and Julia Roberts. His private struggles with substance abuse and his failed relationships never impaired his work. Reading this book will surely revive interest in Mike Nichols's films and make readers mourn the death of originality and risk-taking in American cinema.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Director Mike Nichols (1931-2014) won an Academy Award, a Grammy, three BAFTAs, four Emmys and nine Tony awards during his prolific career, and Mark Harris has written a superb and definitive biography that Nichols and his fans deserve. Harris ("Pictures at a Revolution") is part film historian, theater buff and investigative reporter, which makes this rich, compassionate and candid biography soar with fresh, first-hand anecdotes from Nichols's co-workers and Harris's astute observations about the director's work.

What may surprise many is how often Nichols's career bounced from universal acclaim ("Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "The Graduate" were his first two films; Neil Simon's "Barefoot in the Park" was his first Broadway production) to failures ("Day of the Dolphin" and "Catch-22") and back again. A perfectionist with a short temper and a lacerating tongue, Nichols was a neurotic, insecure workaholic who was in therapy for decades and by the 1980s had suffered a heart attack, a nervous breakdown and was addicted to cocaine and crack. When he married his stabilizing fourth wife, Diane Sawyer, in 1988, he said she "turned Pinocchio into a real boy." This biography offers a treasure of backstage gossip (including the nightmare of directing Plaza Suite starring two alcoholic lead actors in three different roles in three acts). Despite missteps, Nichols was king of the comebacks ("Silkwood" in 1983, "The Birdcage" in 1996, "Angels in America" in 2003) and generally beloved by his co-workers.

Harris's definitive biography of the iconic director, producer and comedian is the ideal gift for anyone interested in the creative arts. Theater buff and journalist Mark Harris delivers a dazzling and definitive biography of the complex and driven director.

[J.D. Frailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a big big big book, in a lot of ways. 688 pages but it’s more than that. As of today it is getting g 4.72 stars on GR, by far the highest I’ve seen. I didn’t know who Nichols was till this book, a complicated genius director of stage—5 Tonys for best director--and screen: The Graduate, Virginia Woolf, Silkwood, Working Girl, on and on, plus a hugely successful comic actor himself. Larger than life in many ways, starting with a weird fucked up childhood—fleeing Europe and the Nazis at 7, bullied and ridiculed due to hairlessness caused by Alopecia—to impoverished struggling actor to bright lights big city, riches and fame, cocaine and crack and 4 marriages, the last and happiest to Diane Sawyer.
The book advances in 2-3 year segments, with a huge amount of background and anecdotes on the making of each of his plays and movies, struggles with writers, studios, actors, and himself. I kept stopping to research more on google, to watch classic movies he relied on for technique and inspiration; he said he watched the movie A Place in the Sun at least 250 times, if someone wanted advice he told them to watch it 25 times then they could talk. He was super dedicated and committed to hard work and craft, to getting what he needed—from everybody—to achieve his vision.
I got the book from the library, but will now buy my own copy and really work through it, re-reading it as I watch all 18 of his movies in chronological order, and as many of his plays as I can find on film, after I’ve reread the section on the making of each. If you know someone who is a theater or movie buff, and who is a serious reader, give them this book for Christmas or just because, and they will thank you. It’s amazing.

[Adam Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is everything: juicy, insightful, moving, inspiring, funny, and sad. In tracking the times of Mike Nichols, Mark Harris walks us through the moment-to-moment shifts that went on in the life of one of the most important filmmakers and comedians of our time. From inventing improv comedy with Elaine May in Chicago, to capturing the zeitgeist (or creating a zeitgeist) with The Graduate, Harris unpacks the pain behind the phenomenon: Nichols' escape from Nazi Germany as a child, his baldness, his excesses, his insecurities. There's an Icarus story in here too: how it's possible for a confirmed genius to fly too close to the sun (see: Catch-22, Wolf, What Planet Are You From?) One of the most remarkable parts of the book is how Harris traces the ways that Nichols picks himself back up and dusts himself off to create memorable films like "Silkwood," "Heartburn," and, my favorite, "The Birdcage." One of Nichols's biggest fears was that he wouldn't live enough life, that he wouldn't take advantage of all of the opportunities life had to offer. This book proves that all of Nichols's fears were for naught; he lived enough life for ten biographies. Luckily, Harris packs them all into this one endlessly readable book.

[Peyton]

This was very impressive! I'm not a huge Mike Nichols fan, aside from liking a handful of his movies over the years, but whats really fascinating about the book and makes it hard to put down is the intensly detailed runthrough of his whole career and process, which was incredibly stressful and fraught with egos, disagreements, passive-aggression, unspoken greivances, failures, surprise successes, depression, addiction, illness etc. It's a really blunt and honest portrait of a certain type of creative process and life in film and theater that devotes equal time to the good and bad qualities Nichols exhibited over his careeer, making the low points or bad movies/plays just as meaningful and illuminating as the great experiences. This is such a brutal portrait of actors and writers, many of which are/were absolutely miserable! Often throughout, Nichols can be pretty unsympathetic, but I found the way the book ends to be profoundly empathetic and very moving, as you see how complicated and intense his whole life was and how hard he was on himself. Exhausting read, but worth it, depending on your tolerance for indulgent egos and intense personalities.

[Trike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boy, talk about a charmed life. It’s almost impossible to believe the extreme good fortune Nichols had of constantly being in the right place at the right time with the right circumstance knowing the right people. He was undeniably talented and smart, yes, but so many things broke his way that he must be a case study as a statistical anomaly.

This took me weeks to read because I was constantly stopping to watch clips of him and Elaine May perform, then his films like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate, followed by the various tributes and honors awarded to him toward the end of his life. All of it entertaining, and fascinating. Reading the behind-the-scenes details and then viewing the final product is educational, to say the least.

[Tim Pinckney · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was very hard to put down. I read late into the night and then, first thing in the morning. It's beautifully done. A truly amazing life and the story told well. Biographies - especially those about anyone in the entertainment field - tend to leave you wanting more. This is a dense, detailed account, told wonderfully, of one of truly seminal artists of our time. Never salacious or dishy but endlessly fascinating.

[Rich Flanders · Rating 5 out of 5]

When you pick up ‘’MIKE NICHOLS - A Life’’ by Mark Harris, you may soon find it hard to put down. The biography is one of the most deeply penetrating probes into the creative process I’ve ever read and a must read for anyone in the creative arts. Fellow performers and directors will be riveted, and musicians, dancers, writers will all be deeply rewarded, but by no means is the book’s appeal limited to performing artists. As swift and enthralling as a fine novel, the story is on a vast human scale that engages any reader.

Exploring the life of Mike Nichols illuminates characteristics that are universally true of artists and the artistic process. Watching Nichols’ work on a film or play, Harris captures the dynamics of the creative process. We witness the fleeting, ineffable, intuitive flashes that shaped such memorable films as The Graduate, Silkwood, Who's Afraid of VIrginia Woolf, Angels in America, The Birdcage, and stage triumphs like Barefoot in the Park, Streamers, The Odd Couple, The Real Thing, Death of a Salesman, and his Evenings with Elaine May.

The story takes on another level of meaning for those of us whose lives in theatre paralleled Nichols’ career. Throughout the book are people and moments that personally touch the trajectory of our own performing lives through some of those years.

The narrative is not always pleasant, delving deep into the often dark labyrinth of Nichols’ mind, but thanks to Harris' unflinching exploration, one of the seminal artists of 20th century theatre and film is fully captured.

Reading this book is to grow harrowingly close to the heart and soul of Mike Nichols, and as you come to the last pages you feel the full impact of how deeply he entered our lives. His departure becomes a devastating personal loss. I can’t think of a greater tribute to an individual, or a book, than that.

This is one of the most rewarding, absorbing, and beautifully written biographies I’ve ever read, or expect to read.

Rich Flanders
richflandersmusic.com

[Carolyn Baird · Rating 5 out of 5]

wow what an incredible man with an incredible career. he truly shaped both broadway & hollywood in a way that i don’t think most people realize. just stunning.

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love/hate reading books about how New York City used to be the center of culture, and now it is the center of movie-to-stage Broadway musicals, chain stores, and too many bank branches. They don't make 'em like Mike Nichols anymore.

[Pola Changnon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing read, filled with vividly researched stories of this “Zelig” of modern pop culture. From pioneer improv with Elaine May to Who’s afraid of Virginia Wolf to Angels in America, Mike Nichols has a career that spans theater, movies and television. Also, my key takeaway: tell your stories! Work them til they gleam. And use these stories to instruct others! Not always a great guy, but ultimately a great artist.