In pictures: Mike Nichols films
- Published
A glimpse at the work of film director Mike Nichols, who has died at the age of 83 and made seminal movies including Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate and Working Girl.
At the age of 35 in 1966, Mike Nichols directed his first Hollywood film - an adaptation of the Edward Albee play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. It earned Taylor the Oscar for best actress.
Nichols became a well-known name with his second film The Graduate, starring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft. It earned the director his first - and only - Oscar. Mrs Robinson's seduction of the young Ben Braddock was a defining moment in 1960s films.
Despite his early success in the film industry, Nichols did not have another mainstream movie hit until Silkwood in the 1980s, which won Meryl Streep and Nichols Oscar nominations. The earnest tale was followed up by the seminal '80s comedy, Working Girl, securing Nichols his fourth Oscar nomination.
The 1996 comedy The Birdcage starred Robin Williams and Nathan Lane as a gay couple - and cabaret stars - who pretend to be straight to appease their son's future in-laws. It was scripted by his former comedy partner Elaine May.
Angels in America has been described as "one of the greatest and most completely achieved adaptations ever from stage to screen". The TV mini-series adapted from Tony Kushner's play is set at the height of the Aids crisis in 1980s New York.
"He has an eye and an ear and a heart for the truth," said Closer star Natalie Portman, whom he also directed on stage in The Seagull. The 2004 film about two couples whose lives become intertwined was written by British writer Patrick Marber and filmed in London.
- Published20 November 2014