
Mike Nichols
A Life
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Narrated by:
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George Newbern
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By:
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Mark Harris
About this listen
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 AudioCritic 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)
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Story
It was the best of times and the worst of times for Hollywood before the war. The box office was booming, and the studios’ control of talent and distribution was as airtight as could be hoped. But the industry’s relationship with Washington was decidedly uneasy - hearings and investigations into allegations of corruption and racketeering were multiplying, and hanging in the air was the insinuation that the business was too foreign, too Jewish, too "un-American" in its values and causes. Could an industry this powerful in shaping America’s mind-set really be left in the hands of this crew?
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Had a lot of fun with this book!
- By Detail-oriented on 08-11-14
By: Mark Harris
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Walt Disney
- The Triumph of the American Imagination
- By: Neal Gabler
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 33 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Walt Disney was a true visionary whose desire for escape, iron determination, and obsessive perfectionism transformed animation from a novelty to an art form, first with Mickey Mouse and then with his feature films–most notably Snow White, Fantasia, and Bambi.
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Diane Disney
- By Amanda on 02-15-13
By: Neal Gabler
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Apropos of Nothing
- By: Woody Allen
- Narrated by: Woody Allen
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In this candid and hilarious memoir, the celebrated director, comedian, writer, and actor offers a comprehensive, personal look at his tumultuous life. He revisits his entire 60-year-long career as a writer and director, from his classics Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Hannah and Her Sisters to his most recent films, including Midnight in Paris. He discusses his marriages, romances, and famous friendships, his jazz playing, and his books and plays. We learn about his demons, his mistakes, his successes, and those he loved, worked with, and learned from.
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Totally Woody
- By Ronald R. Kubiak on 04-19-20
By: Woody Allen
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George Lucas
- A Life
- By: Brian Jay Jones
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 18 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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On May 25, 1977, a problem-plagued, budget-straining, independent science-fiction film opened in a mere 32 American movie theatres. Conceived, written, and directed by a little-known filmmaker named George Lucas, Star Wars reinvented the cinematic landscape, ushering in a new way for movies to be made, marketed, and merchandised. Simply put, George Lucas is one of the most influential filmmakers of the past 50 years.
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The General in his Labyrinth
- By Joselo on 09-15-17
By: Brian Jay Jones
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City of Nets
- A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940's
- By: Otto Friedrich, Glen David Gold - foreword
- Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
- Length: 25 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1939, 50 million Americans went to the movies every week, Louis B. Mayer was the highest-paid man in the country, and Hollywood produced 530 feature films a year. One decade and five thousand movies later, the studios were faltering....
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Disjointed and flawed
- By A. N. Onymous on 01-18-22
By: Otto Friedrich, and others
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Adventures in the Screen Trade
- By: William Goldman
- Narrated by: Kiff VandenHeuvel
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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No one knows the writer's Hollywood more intimately than William Goldman. Two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter and the best-selling author of Marathon Man, Tinsel, Boys and Girls Together, and other novels, Goldman now takes you into Hollywood's inner sanctums...on and behind the scenes for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President's Men, and other films...into the plush offices of Hollywood producers...into the working lives of acting greats such as Redford, Olivier, Newman, and Hoffman...and more.
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Classic in the field stands up
- By Jenny Jenkins on 01-01-24
By: William Goldman
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Making Rumours
- The Inside Story of the Classic Fleetwood Mac Album
- By: Ken Caillat, Steve Stiefel
- Narrated by: Ken Caillat, Fred Berman
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Fleetwood Mac's classic 1977 Rumours album topped the Billboard 200 for 31 weeks and won the Album of the Year Grammy. More recently, Rolling Stone named it the 25th greatest album of all time and the hit TV series Glee devoted an entire episode to songs from Rumours, introducing it to a new generation. Now, for the first time, Ken Caillat, the album's co-producer, tells the full story of what really went into making Rumours.
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Caillat Cursed With Perfect Memory
- By Private. on 02-05-13
By: Ken Caillat, and others
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Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions
- My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood
- By: Ed Zwick
- Narrated by: Ed Zwick
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Though there are many factors behind such success, including luck and the contributions of his creative partner Marshall Herskovitz, he’s known to have a special talent for bringing out the best in the people he’s worked with, notably the actors. In those intense collaborations, he seeks to discover the small pieces of connective tissue, vulnerability, and fellowship that can help an actor realize their character in full.
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Authentic, Sobering & Full of Grace
- By David_Leah Wiley on 02-17-24
By: Ed Zwick
What listeners say about Mike Nichols
Highly rated for:
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- Kat M.
- 07-06-21
Amazing biography!!
The performance is good but mispronunciation of names is grating. Otherwise absolutely brilliant. Highly recommend.
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- Eclectic Guy
- 05-26-21
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?
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- GlibLib
- 02-16-22
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
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- befuddledbylife
- 05-11-23
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.
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- Anonymous User
- 03-22-25
Great book about a great man.
Especially interesting if you are in show business, more about his career than personal life, fascinating regarding both. A complex, original man of brilliance.
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- BillyS
- 03-13-21
What a life!
This is a beautifully written biography of a beloved entertainment icon. Fantastic narration by George Newbern. Highly recommended.
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- GarWhite
- 04-30-21
Sooooo good! Wanted it to be even longer.
Sooooo good! Wanted it to be even longer. Loved the directing details for each project
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1 person found this helpful
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- SoFlaGal
- 06-05-24
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.
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- Daniel
- 07-19-24
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.
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-14-21
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.
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19 people found this helpful