He won his sixth Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play with a revival of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (2012) starring Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Nichols also directed Catch-22 (1970), Carnal Knowledge (1971), The Day of the Dolphin (1973), Silkwood (1983), Working Girl (1988), Postcards from the Edge (1990), The Birdcage (1996), Primary Colors (1998), Closer (2004), and Charlie Wilson's War (2007).

Around age four, Nichols had lost his hair following an allergic reaction to an inoculation for whooping cough; consequently, when he reached adulthood he wore wigs and false eyebrows for the rest of his life.

[3][5] In April 1939, when the Nazis were arresting Jews in Berlin, seven-year-old Mikhail and his three-year-old brother Robert were sent alone to the United States to join their father, who had fled months earlier.

Co-owner Rita Jacobs asked Nichols to create a folk music program on Saturday nights, which he named The Midnight Special.

Nichols frequently invited musicians to perform live in the studio and eventually created a unique blend of "folk music and farce, showtunes and satire, odds and ends", along with his successor Norm Pellegrini.

[14][15] Nichols first saw Elaine May when she was sitting in the front row while he was playing the lead in a Chicago production of Miss Julie, and they made eye contact.

"[17]: 325 In 1953, Nichols left Chicago for New York City to study method acting under Lee Strasberg, but was unable to find stage work there.

Personal idiosyncrasies and tensions, such as on the unsuccessful A Matter of Position, a play written by May and starring Nichols, eventually drove the duo apart to pursue other projects in 1961.

About their sudden breakup, director Arthur Penn said, "They set the standard and then they had to move on,"[17]: 351  while talk show host Dick Cavett said "they were one of the comic meteors in the sky.

[20] Pre-film stage career After the professional split with May, Nichols went to Vancouver, British Columbia, to work in the theater directing a production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest and acted in a revival of George Bernard Shaw's St.

"[11] Although he had no experience in filmmaking, after befriending[23] Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Warner Bros. invited Nichols to direct a screen adaptation of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Hoffman credits Nichols for having taken a great risk in giving him, a relative unknown, the starring role: "I don't know of another instance of a director at the height of his powers who would take a chance and cast someone like me in that part.

Even actor William Daniels, who played Hoffman's father, remembers that after first hearing the songs, especially "The Sound of Silence", he thought, "Oh, wait a minute.

"[35] Nichols's next film was a big-budget adaptation of Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 (1970), followed by Carnal Knowledge (1971) starring Jack Nicholson, Ann-Margret, Art Garfunkel and Candice Bergen.

In 1973, Nichols directed a revival of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya on Broadway starring George C. Scott and with a new translation by himself and Albert Todd.

[11] In 1973 Nichols directed the film The Day of the Dolphin starring George C. Scott, based on the French novel Un animal doué de raison (lit.

[11] Nichols returned to the stage with two moderately successful productions in 1976; David Rabe's Streamers opened in April and ran for 478 performances.

Rosie O'Donnell later said that Nichols had discovered Goldberg while she was struggling as a downtown artist: "He gave her the entire beginning of her career and recognized her brilliance before anyone else.

The first was an adaptation of Neil Simon's autobiographical stage play Biloxi Blues starring Matthew Broderick, also receiving mixed critical reviews.

When he was honored by Lincoln Center in 1999 for his life's work, Elaine May—speaking once again as his friend—served up the essence of Nichols with the following: So he's witty, he's brilliant, he's articulate, he's on time, he's prepared and he writes.

[60] Among projects that remained uncompleted when he died, in April 2013 it was announced that Nichols was in talks to direct a film adaptation of Jonathan Tropper's novel One Last Thing Before I Go.

"[68] During a half-year period in 1967 he had four hit plays running simultaneously on Broadway, during which time his first Hollywood feature, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, had also become a popular and critical success.

"[50] However, it was Taylor who chose Nichols to be their director, because, writes biographer David Bret, "she particularly admired him because he had done a number of ad-hoc jobs to pay for his education after arriving in America as a seven-year-old Jewish refugee.

[77] While in high school, Nichols had been an instructor at the Claremont Riding Academy in Manhattan's Upper West Side and also had "ridden in horse shows in Chicago.

"[78] In 2009, Nichols signed a petition in support of releasing director Roman Polanski, who had been detained while traveling to a film festival in relation to his 1977 sexual abuse charges, which the petition argued would undermine the tradition of film festivals as a place for works to be shown "freely and safely", and that arresting filmmakers traveling to neutral countries could open the door "for actions of which no-one can know the effects.

Guests included Streep, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Natalie Portman, Carly Simon, Nathan Lane and Christine Baranski.

[90] In 2017, during an Oscars Actress Roundtable with The Hollywood Reporter, Amy Adams, Natalie Portman, and Annette Bening spoke about the effect Nichols had on their lives.

Nichols also known for his extensive work on Broadway and received 16 Tony Award nominations, winning eight times for Barefoot in the Park (1964), Luv/The Odd Couple (1965), Plaza Suite (1968), The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1972), Annie (1977), The Real Thing (1984), Monty Python's Spamalot (2005), and Death of a Salesman (2012).

Nichols also received Primetime Emmy Awards for directing and producing the HBO television film Wit (2001) and miniseries Angels in America (2003).