BROADCASTS.com

Alec\u2019s guest Mark Harris has written a compelling new biography about one of the most celebrated directors of all time, Mike Nichols. Drawn from more than 250 interviews, Mike Nichols: A Life tracks Nichol\u2019s difficult childhood as a German Jewish immigrant growing up in New York City to his college years at the University of Chicago where Nichols found a community of performers, including his life-long collaborator Elaine May. In 1963, Mike Nichols and Elaine May performed more than 300 sold-out comedy shows on Broadway. Nichols then spent decades moving fluidly between directing on Broadway and in Hollywood. His movies include The Graduate, Who\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Silkwood, and Working Girl, and his plays include Neil Simon\u2019s Barefoot in the Park, Tom Stoppard\u2019s The Real Thing, and Monty Python\u2019s Spamalot. Over the course of his lifetime, Mike Nichols\u2019 won every major award in his field and, as Mark Harris movingly chronicles, it took a lifetime for Mike Nichols to learn to be happy.\xa0

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