(Note: This interview first aired back in February.) Our guest is the writer and film historian Mark Harris, whose newest book, which he tells us about, is
Film Historian Mark Harris Offers Mike Nichols: A Life publicradiotulsa.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from publicradiotulsa.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Man Who Went Backstage
Mike Nichols stopped performing and became immortal
Mike Nichols was one of a vanishingly small number of directors to have done distinguished work on both stage and screen, and one of an even smaller number to be widely known by name to the public at large. But like Alfred Hitchcock, who became nationally famous only when he started hosting a TV series, Nichols first acquired his celebrity for another reason. From 1957 to 1961, he and Elaine May were a hugely popular stand-up comedy team, appearing on TV and radio and cutting bestselling albums of the sketches in which they satirized the foibles of middle-class America in the Eisenhower era. Not until 1963 did Nichols direct his first Broadway show, Neil Simon’s