| Title | : | Mike Nichols: a life : Harris, Mark |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0399562249 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 978-0399562242 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle , Hardcover , Paperback , Audiobook & More |
| Number of Pages | : | 688 pages |
| Publication | : | Penguin Press |
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 astonishing given where he had begun: born Igor Peschkowsky to a Jewish couple in Berlin in 1931, he was sent along with his younger brother 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 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.
Mike Nichols: a life : Harris, Mark Reviews
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Mark Harris's thoroughly well researched tome on Mike Nichols is a must for any fan of the director's work. It sets out in chronological order every one of Nichols's stage, film and TV productions and performances and successfully gets under the skin of what made the man so accomplished. Through extensive interviews with his many collaborators it also reveals much about his life and personality and what made Nichols so driven. Harris, who knew Nichols, clearly has great affection for his subject whilst being realistic about his faults and occasional lapses. The book inspired me to revisit his best films and to seek out the classic Mike Nichols & Elaine May comedy sketches. Recommended
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Written in a wonderfully fluid style, hugely entertaining and informative, this long bio is successfully riddled with anecdotes and comments from those who knew and worked with Mike Nichols. Despite being one of the greatest talents of his age in theatre and cinema, he had his share of turkeys and lean times. However, 60 years later I can still recite the tracks from “Mike Nichols and Elaine May at Home”, and of course there were the ground breaking Virginia Woolf, The Graduate, Catch 22, and so much besides. This is a highly recommended book.
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Mark Harris has written a wonderful, juicy, fact filled biography of one of the 20th Centuries most iconic directors. It is a book that is broken down into two year bites so that one can dip in for a few anecdotes and theatre history and then return before boredom sets in.Most interesting to me was when Harris pulled the curtain back to show the indecisions, the process and the stumbling that even the best artists have.Anyone who loved Nichol's work will find this an indispensable read.
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This is a well written, insightful and funny biography of Mike Nichols, and, incidentally, almost a manual of tips for directing theatrical productions, stage comedies and for directing movies. Mike Nichols presented a prepared persona to the world from boyhood onward, and this adroit analysis uncovers much of his charming performance of life.
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This was a fab bio of a very interesting man. Very gossipy & filled with details of his life, I did not know. I would recommend it 2 theater lovers, movie fans & anyone who wants 2 read about a life well lived.
