Mike Nichols, legendary theater and film director, dies.
Mike Nichols, one of the great directors of both stage and screen, died of cardiac arrest on Wednesday, November 19. He was 83. His death was announced by ABC. Nichols is survived by his wife, the newswoman Diane Sawyer, three children and four grandchildren.
Mike Nichols never directed a straight ahead comedy or drama. He excelled at both because he knew that life, and all its situations, was a combination of the two. Nichols got his start as a standup comedian and came to prominence as part of the due Nichols and May, with Elaine May, who he often cast in his films. He co-founded Chicago’s Second City comedy troupe in the 1960s.
Nichols was married four times, to Patricia Scott from 1957 to 1960, to Margo Callas, with whom he had a daughter Daisy Nichols, from 1963 to 1974, Annabel Davis-Goff, who had two children, Max and Jenny, with him and Diane Sawyer.
Mike Nichols was born Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky on November 6, 1931 in Berlin, Germany. Nichols studied acting in New York under famed teacher Lee Strasberg. Nichols first hit the stage in the 1950s with the improv troupe, the Compass Players. He won the Best Director Academy Award for the film The Graduate in 1968. He also directed the films Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Catch-22, Carnal Knowledge, Silkwood, Working Girl, The Birdcage, Closer and his last movie Charlie Wilson's War.
Nichols directed HBO’s mini-series adaptation of the play Angels in America. Nichols theater productions included Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park and The Odd Couple and the Monty Python musical comedy Spamalot.
Nichols won all four big entertainment awards, the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. He was alsio honored at the Lincoln Center Gala Tribute in 1999, the National Medal of Arts in 2001, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2003 and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2010.
ABC said a "small, private service will be held this week, and a memorial will be held later this week."