RIP/Mike Nichols; dead at 83

[daty/o]

Mike Nichols, famed director of The Graduate and countless other well known movies, and plays, died on Wednesday. He was a true legend.

[ElisabethWhispers]

Oh wow. Hadn't read that. His wife is stunning. Diane Sawyer.

He did a lot of great films. Trying to remember some of the names, though.

[eccienewbie]

Great stage director, too. Directed the original Broadway productions of The Odd Couple and (more importantly for any pythons) Spamalot.

Dude really caught lightning in a bottle as a young director in the mid '60's and early 70's. He directed ALL of the following in a single 5 year period:

*The Odd Couple (Broadway)

*Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Can you imagine a first time film director dealing with Taylor and Burton?)

*The Graduate

*Little Foxes (Broadway)

*Plaza Suite (Broadway...Neil Simon obviously liked this cat)

*Catch 22 (if y'all haven't seen this, you might wanna do sumpin' about fixin' that...underrated war satire that had the misfortune of being released at the same time as MASH...doesn't do well by comparison, but it holds up very nicely if viewed on its own merits in isolation...a very flawed but exceptionally interesting film, imo, with a screenplay by Buck Henry and a really nice lead performance by a young Alan Arkin)

*Carnal Knowledge

That's more upper echelon work than most directors would achieve in 10 lifetimes, and there was a lot more to follow.

RIP, dude! A life well spent.

[ElisabethWhispers]

nevermind.

SIGH

[eccienewbie]

Originally Posted by ElisabethWhispers

(I wonder if he drugged and raped women, too? See topic on Bill Cosby!)

Elisabeth

wut?

Yeah, yeah, I know about the Cosby situation, but..... I mean, I assume your remark is intended to note the always existing possibility that someone we've greatly admired MAY have some skeletons in his/her closet, and that we just never know, but... WTF????

[eccienewbie]

sigh....

[ElisabethWhispers]

Because your comfort is my primary concern, I deleted my response.

Also, the above. What I wrote above is in your quote.

Have a good week,
Elisabeth

[eccienewbie]

I'll leave my posts just the way they are....

[Prolongus]

A one-of-a-kind talent...loved his movies. There was a feature on him on the national news last night. Had no idea about a childhood disease that prevented him from growing hair... He wore wigs all his life. I'll never forget this exchange in The Graduate when Ben (Dustin Hoffman) tells his dad he's gonna marry Elaine:

"Ben...is this some sort of half-baked idea on your part?"
"No sir, it's fully baked..."