Mike Nichols

His father's family had been wealthy and lived in Siberia, leaving after the Russian Revolution, and settling in Germany, around 1920.

His parents, Brigitte and Pavel Peschkowsky (A.K.A. Dr. Igor Paul Nichols) had been married in 1925, the couple would have Mike, almost 7 years later.

He and his younger brother, Robert, fled Berlin, Nazi Germany for the USA in April 1939 due to increasing Nazi atrocities. Their father had already relocated there some years back. The young boys arrived on April 28, 1939 in New York City, where their father, now known as Paul Nichols, had set up a medical practice and become a successful medical practitioner. The boys' mother was reunited with her family the following year in 1940.

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume Two, 1945-1985". Pages 704-710. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1988.

His favorite films included A Place in the Sun (1951), Persona (1966) and 8½ (1963).

From the early 1960s until his death, he was a well-known figure among Arabian Horse fans - as a breeder of over 400 registered Arabians, including owning and breeding many US National Champion horses.

Father of Daisy Nichols (born in 1964), Max Nichols (born in 1974) and Jenny Nichols (born in 1977).

Directed 17 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Elizabeth Taylor, Sandy Dennis, Richard Burton, George Segal, Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross, Ann-Margret, Meryl Streep,Cher, Melanie Griffith, Sigourney Weaver, Joan Cusack, Kathy Bates, Natalie Portman, Clive Owen, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. (Taylor and Dennis won Oscars for their performances in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966).).

When he won his Oscar as Best Director for The Graduate (1967), the statuette was presented to him by actress Leslie Caron.

Received the first straight $1,000,000 director's salary for Catch-22 (1970). When percentages were figured in, Nichols was the first director to earn $1,000,000, combination salary and percentage of net or gross, from a single film, for The Graduate (1967).

According to Jack Nicholson's April 1972 Playboy Magazine interview, Nichols asked Nicholson and other cast members not to smoke marijuana while filming Carnal Knowledge (1971) on location in Vancouver, British Columbia, where cannabis was easily available. Nichols thought that it dulled an actor's performance.

Director of hit Broadway musical 'Monty Python's Spamalot' ("lovingly ripped off from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975).") [February 2005]

Nichols was the original choice to direct the 1976 film The Last Tycoon (1976). He left the project due to creative differences with actor Robert De Niro.

He was nominated for a 1977 Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award for Best Director of a Play for "Streamers" on Broadway in New York City.

He was nominated for a 1978 Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award for Best Director of a Play for "The Gin Game" on Broadway in New York City.

Was interested in directing Rambo: First Blood (1982) with Dustin Hoffman as John Rambo.

His mother, Brigitte Peschkowsky, died on January 10, 1985. She lived to be 78.

Two of his films are on the American Film Institute's 100 Most Inspiring Movies of All time. They are Working Girl (1988) at #87 and Silkwood (1983) at #66.

Directed Postcards from the Edge (1990), which was written by Carrie Fisher and based on her relationship with her real-life mother, Debbie Reynolds. He later directed Closer (2004), with featured Fisher's on-screen Star Wars mother, Natalie Portman.

One of the Directors Guild of America's annual Honorees in 2000.

He was awarded the American National Medal of the Arts in 2001 by the National Endowment of the Arts in Washington D.C.

One of 5 recipients of the 2003 Kennedy Center Honors; other recipients were James Brown, Carol Burnett, Loretta Lynn and Itzhak Perlman.

Had cardiac bypass surgery in New York in 2008, from which he appeared to recover fully.

In April 2009, Nichols told The New York Times that when he came to the U.S. from Germany seventy years earlier, he could speak only two English sentences, which were, "I do not speak English" and "Please, do not kiss me".

On Faces of America with Henry Louis Gates Jr.. (2010), Nichols learned he was a distant relative of actor Meryl Streep. A few years later on a different Gates show, Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (2012), he also found out that he was related to Albert Einstein. They would have been 3rd or 4th cousins several times removed.