Mike Nichols, legendary American film and theater director, died on November 19th, 2014, at the age of 83. Born Michael Igor Peschkowsky on November 6th, 1931, in Berlin, Germany, Mike was the son of two Jewish emigrants, a nurse and a doctor. He moved to America at age 7 where he went to school in New York City. Mike had an illustrious career as a filmmaker and director. He won Tonys for barefoot in the park in 1964, and for theatre productions of Death of a salesman in 1966 and The Real Thing in 2000. After that, he won the Best Director Academy Award for The Graduate in 1967. He went on to receive seven additional Oscar nominations throughout his career. His filmography included Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Working Girl, Silkwood, and Closer, for which his collaborator, the actor and writer Alan Bennett, received an Academy Award nomination. More recently, Mike directed the critically acclaimed HBO miniseries Angels in America, which earned him 11 Emmy nominations and won him a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Directing at age 71. He also worked with many renowned actors, including Hollywood legends Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, and more recently, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Bradley Cooper in his 2012 movie, The Silver Linings Playbook. Mike was predeceased by his first wife, actress and novelist Annabel Davis-Goff, and is survived by his second wife, columnist Diane Sawyer, his daughter Daisy, and his four half brothers and sisters.