otherpersons

Mike Nichols (born 6 November 1931) is an American television, stage and film director, writer, and producer. Nichols is one of only ten people to have won all the major American entertainment awards: an Oscar, Grammy, Emmy and Tony Award.

Early years

Nichols was born Michael Igor Peschkowsky in Berlin, Germany, the son of Brigitte Landauer (his maternal grandparents are Gustav Landauer and Hedwig Lachmann) and Igor Nicholaievitch Peschkowsky, a physician. He and his German-Russian Jewish family moved to the United States to flee the Nazis in 1939 Mike Nichols’ life in the trenches By Glenn Kenny, LA Times, December 16, 2007, in print edition E-31.. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1944. While attending the University of Chicago in the 1950s, he began work in improvisational comedy with the Compass Players, a precursor to The Second City, and later started the long-running Midnight Special folk music program on radio station WFMT.