Mike Nichols

A Life

By: Mark Harris

Narrated by: George Newbern

A National Book Critics Circle Finalist

One of People's Top 10 Books of 2021

An instant New York Times best seller

Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR and Time

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 20s, 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 35, 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 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 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.

©2021 Mark Harris (P)2021 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“A pleasure to read and a model biography: appreciative yet critical, unfailingly intelligent and elegantly written...a shrewd, in-depth reckoning of the elusive man behind the polished facade.... [Harris’s] marvelous book makes palpable in artful detail the extraordinary scope and brilliance of [Nichols’s] achievements.” (Wendy Smith, The Washington Post)

“Wonderful...[Harris] is in top form here. His command of the theater world and the film industry and his smart and engaging writing (he calls the profligate Nichols ‘a rich man who enjoyed living like an even richer man’) make the book a pleasure to read.” (Christian Science Monitor)

“Hugely entertaining...Harris is a talented storyteller.” (Louis Menand, The New Yorker)

Amazing biography!!

The performance is good but mispronunciation of names is grating. Otherwise absolutely brilliant. Highly recommend.

A brilliant book about a brilliant artist

This biography is so captivating, so riveting, that you would swear that Mike Nichols himself had directed it. There is not a wasted word, not a false moment. You will not want it to end. One painful distraction: The narrator mispronounces the first name of Elia Kazan throughout the book. There are dozens of references. Do the authors not listen to the narrations before they're released?

very moving. a great reading . opened my mind

I fancy myself a cinephile and must admit I'd never paid much attention to the work of Mike nichols after The graduate. this definitely broadened my horizons and silkwood is an amazing movie. this reading by the actor was very engrossing I loved this book

A life well lived

A hero to everyone who knew him.
He shows that a terrible childhood can be overcome with love hope and passion.

What a life!

This is a beautifully written biography of a beloved entertainment icon. Fantastic narration by George Newbern. Highly recommended.

Sooooo good! Wanted it to be even longer.

Sooooo good! Wanted it to be even longer. Loved the directing details for each project

A remarkable human being

Having started this book knowing very little about Mike Nichols I finished feeling like he was an uncle I hadn’t seen in many years. He touched so many lives through his work and caused them to be better at living life. Captivating and impossible to put down, I’m now sad to leave his works behind.

A Must Listen for Film Enthusiasts

For those who love classic cinema are truly in for a treat with his biography of one of cinema’s, theater’s and television’s greatest directors.

Loved the book, but driven nuts my mispronounced names.

I knew Mike and worked for him twice and always admired and loved him. Mark Harris’ deep dive into his life is full of the truth of this amazing man. But how is it that the producers allowed George Newbern to mispronounce so many names. Since all of those people are important parts of the story I found it enormously distracting. I wonder if Mark Harris had listened to the recording: Alan Pecula, Elia Kazan, Rosemary Tischler, and many more. It is sloppy and not up to the high standard of this book.

fabulous

I loved the stories of backstage insights and detsils of productions and famous stars who were his friends.