{"product_id":"mike-nichols-a-life-paperback","title":"Mike Nichols: A Life - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eMark Harris\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eA National Book Critics Circle finalist \u003cb\u003e-\u003c\/b\u003e One of \u003ci\u003ePeople\u003c\/i\u003e's top 10 books of 2021 \u003cb\u003e-\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eAn instant \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller - Named a best book of the year by NPR and \u003ci\u003eTime\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA magnificent biography of one of the most protean creative forces in American entertainment history, a life of dazzling highs and vertiginous plunges\u003ci\u003e--\u003c\/i\u003esome of the worst largely unknown until now\u003ci\u003e--\u003c\/i\u003eby the acclaimed author of \u003ci\u003ePictures at a Revolution\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eFive Came Back\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMike Nichols burst onto the scene as a wunderkind: while still in his twenties, 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 \u003ci\u003eWho's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?\u003c\/i\u003e, and followed it with \u003ci\u003eThe Graduate\u003c\/i\u003e, which won him an Oscar and became the third-highest-grossing movie ever. At thirty-five, 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhere 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMark 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.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eMark Harris is the author of \u003ci\u003ePictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood\u003c\/i\u003e, which was a \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003enotable book of the year\u003ci\u003e, \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War.\u003c\/i\u003e A graduate of Yale University, Harris lives in New York City with his husband, Tony Kushner.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 688\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1.6 x 8.4 x 5.4 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e February 01, 2022\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51766882533664,"sku":"9780399562266","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/539540cd5252b1e99bbc7602b97fe491.webp?v=1780300521","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/mike-nichols-a-life-paperback","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}