We mourn the loss of director Mike Nichols, who died yesterday at age 83, survived by his wife, television journalist Diane Sawyer. Nichols began as part of the 1950’s improvisational movement coming out of Chicago, and rose to fame as half of the comedy team Nichols and May, with Elaine May, who also became a director. Their humor was brainy and neurotic, part of the same genre that included stand-ups Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce and cartoonist Jules Feiffer. He then became one of the most gifted directors of the late 1960’s through the present day, winning all four in the EGOT awards, Emmys (“Wit,” “Angels in America”), a Grammy (best comedy album with May in 1962), Oscar (“The Graduate”), and multiple Tonys including awards as producer of “Annie,” and director of “Death of a Salesman,” “Spamalot,” and “Barefoot in the Park.” He also received the nation’s highest artistic honor, the Kennedy Center Award, and the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Nichols was born in Germany as Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky and immigrated to the United States when he was seven. He dropped out of pre-med at the University of Chicago to study at the legendary Actors Studio in New York with Lee Strasberg. His first Broadway directing job was Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park,” a huge hit. He worked with Simon many more times, and Simon pays tribute to him in his book Rewrites: A Memoir as the smartest person in the world.
His first film was the groundbreaking “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” starring real-life battling spouses Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, followed by the even more groundbreaking “The Graduate,” a moment-defining film that spoke to what was then called the generation gap of the 1960’s and launched the careers of Dustin Hoffman and Simon and Garfunkel. Following an uneven version of the unfilmable “Catch-22,” he made the highly controversial “Carnal Knowledge,” starring Jack Nicholson, Candice Bergen, and Ann-Margret. The film, written by Jules Feiffer, had a then-highly controversial frankness about sex that got it banned as obscene in a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court ruled that it was not pornography.
Nichols’ other films include “Working Girl,” “Heartburn,” “The Birdcage,” “Silkwood,” and “Postcards from the Edge.” Actors loved working with him and some of the best, like Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson, worked with him many times. Only Nichols could have coaxed Melanie Griffith to what is by far her best performance in “Working Girl,” much less persuaded one of the most successful actors of all time, Harrison Ford, to appear in the film in a supporting role, but also one of his best and most natural and witty performances. Nichols was especially good with actors. Bergen, then very inexperienced, talked about how her helped her in the early scenes of “Carnal Knowledge.” When she was having a hard time finding the right note of nervousness and vulnerability for a college party scene, he had her wear a slip but no skirt while her close-ups were being filmed. In the same film he gave Ann-Margret a chance to show a depth and complexity no other director ever did and she was nominated for an Oscar for her performance. Cher was not an established actress when he cast her in “Silkwood,” and audiences were surprised to see how grounded and natural she was as the title character’s lesbian roommate.
His television work included the outstanding adaptation of “Wit,” with Emma Thompson as a professor dying of cancer.
Nichols always put top-notch performers in even the smallest roles in his films, and his music, cinematography, and design partners in filmmaking were superbly chosen. His taste was impeccable. He leaves behind an extraordinary legacy of work that will be appreciated for generations. May his memory be a blessing.
Historian Jill Lepore is one of my favorite writers and I am also a Comic-Con-attending fangirl, so I was thrilled to get a chance to hear Professor Lepore speak at the Smithsonian about her new book, The Secret History of Wonder Woman.
There are only three superheroes who have appeared for decades without any interruptions: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. But like Superman and Batman, she has taken on many forms and cultural signifiers over the decades. She was way ahead of her time as a feminist symbol. She was from a matriarchal culture and exemplified independence and courage. But she was only permitted to join the Justice Society after a poll of comics readers, and, once she joined, she served as its secretary, sitting primly and taking notes.
Lepore’s focus was less on Wonder Woman as a character, a symbol, or a work of art but as the creation of an historic figure, one who was well known for his scholarship and invention, but who led a life of secrets that were reflected in his most famous creation.
Lepore considers her the “missing link” between feminism in the first half of the 20th century (women’s suffrage to Rosie the Riveter) and the second half (the rise of the women’s movement in the 70’s and the broader opportunities for women following the Equal Rights Act).
Wonder Woman was the creation of William Moulton Marston, a remarkably accomplished man who had both a law degree and a PhD in psychology from Harvard. Lepore described details of his life which were reflected in the Wonder Woman character and storylines. Marston was one of the inventors of the polygraph lie detector test, probably the inspiration for Wonder Woman’s lasso of truth. Those captured by her magic rope cannot lie. Marston was also a committed feminist. While some Wonder Woman fans have have noted the superheroine’s frequent appearance in bondage, Lepore is the first to connect this directly to the images used by early 20th century feminists in their pursuit of the vote, birth control, and other rights for women. Marston also lived with and had children with two women, his wife and a kind of “sister-wife,” who was the niece of birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger. This arrangement allowed his wife to pursue her career while the children were cared for by the “other mother.”
Marston believed that comics had a great power to communicate and explicitly intended Wonder Woman to carry his message of female empowerment. A story published in 1943 had her becoming President — a thousand years in the future.
Trailer: Disney’s New Live-Action “Cinderella” With Cate Blanchett as the Evil Stepmother
Posted on November 19, 2014 at 12:08 pm
Lily James (“Downton Abbey”) plays the title role in Disney’s new live-action “Cinderella,” with Cate Blanchett as the evil stepmother and Helena Bonham-Carter as the fairy godmother, directed by Kenneth Branagh. Richard Madden (“Game of Thrones”) is the charming prince. And look at the gorgeous production design from Dante Ferretti (“Hugo”) and costumes from Sandy Powell (“The Wolf of Wall Street,” “The Tempest”). It will be in theaters in March 2015.
Costume designers are not a about pretty clothes or fashion. The one time Coco Chanel tried to design costumes for a film, her impeccable designs came across as flat and uninspired. Costumes are about creating the character and telling the story, just like every other artist contributing to the overall impact of a film.
CBS Sunday Morning paid tribute to Ann Roth, one of the greatest costume designers of all time, still working both in Hollywood and on Broadway. You’ve seen her designs in “Julie & Julia,” “The English Patient,” “The Way Way Back,” “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” “The Birdcage,” and “Working Girl.”
As a kid, I’d stop and watch her work on Julie Andrews “flapper” getup for “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” Diana Ross’ gown for “Lady Sings the Blues,” and many others. What an inspiration. Her talents were many; she transitioned to uniform design to bring her Hollywood touch to the opening look of the Beverly and Havana Hilton Hotels in the 1950’s. She went on to write and illustrate her own book on the subject, The Art of Costume Design. The daughter of a portrait and MGM scenic artist, she kept busy in the field of art till one day in 1986, while working on Euro Disneyland, I suggested that Marilyn consider bringing her cinematic sensibility to the costuming being designed for the Paris park, “Auntie Mare” was up for the challenge, showed her stuff, and was hired immediately.
Copyright 1967 Universal Pictures
Many of you knew her and her “bigger than life” passion for design and flamboyant personality. She brought the company and her peers a great passion for what could be, always “pushing the buttonhole” to make the costumes less “uniform”-like and more theatrical to drive the story. It was always about the show. Her work did not stop after Disneyland Paris. She went on to relocate with her husband John to Florida to design Walt Disney World parade costumes, resort and cruise ship attire, Super Bowl spectacles and more. A high point to her was researching ancient animatronic costuming for Spaceship Earth’s recent facelift. She told me that she felt she had come full circle, reminding her of doing the Egyptian garb for The Ten Commandments, decades earlier.
