R.I.P. Mike Nichols, director of Wolf, has died at age 83

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Celebrated director Mike Nichols, whose vast filmography includes WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, THE GRADUATE, SILKWOOD, and 1994's Jack Nicholson-starring WOLF, has died at age 83 from cardiac arrest.

Nichols, who was born Michael Igor Peschkowsky in Berlin in 1931, was one of the very few people to win all four major US entertainment awards with an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony award.

Nichols got his start as a stage performer, and in the 1950s co-founded the Chicago-based comedy troupe Second City, which honed comedians including John Belushi and Bill Murray.

Nichols won his first Tony in 1964 directing Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley in "Barefoot in the Park". More acclaim would follow for his work on the big screen, with films like WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, SILKWOOD, and THE GRADUATE, for which he won an Academy Award for best director in 1967.

Nichols contribution to our beloved genre came with 1994's WOLF, which starred Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer in the lead roles, alongside James Spader, Kate Nelligan, Richard Jenkins, Christopher Plummer, Eileen Atkins, David Hyde Pierce, and Om Puri. The film followed publisher Will Randall (Nicholson) who, after being bit by a wolf, suddenly finds himself energized, more competitive than ever, and possessed with amazingly heightened senses. Meanwhile, the beautiful daughter of his shrewd boss begins to fall for him without realizing that the man she's begun to love is gradually turning into the creature by which he was bit.

His last film was 2007's CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR, starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts.

The director was married to ABC News presenter Diane Sawyer – his fourth wife – whom he wed in 1988.