First a pioneering comic with Elaine May in the famous team Nichols/May, Mike Nichols went on to become a famous stage director as well as film director. He is one of only twelve to have won the "grand-slam" of American entertainment, the EGOT ( Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Awards. )

So many of today's directors become acclaimed for a singular aesthetic POV. But Nichols was an old-school director whose work was scattered in a variety of genres and themes linked only by consummate craftmanship.

On Broadway he originated Neil Simon's The Odd Couple and the original Annie.

In film, The Graduate, Working Girl, and The Birdcage are among his better known films.

And his HBO production of Angels in America is one of the most outstanding productions it has staged.

Hollywood needs more of his sort. The kind of director whose work is such that you say, "They were all great films, but are you SURE it was the same guy?"

Dante