Mike Nichols is a television, stage and film director, producer and writer with an estimated net worth of $5 million. Born as Michael Igor Peschkowsky on November 16, 1931 in Berlin, Germany, he immigrated to the US at the age of seven together with his family. In 1944, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He attended a public elementary in Manhattan and Walden High School. He briefly attended New York University before dropping out of college. He also enrolled in the pre-med program at the University of Chicago in 1950. However, he began skipping class to attend theatrical activities where he first met Elaine May who criticized his acting performance of August Strindberg’s Miss Julie. They both became a lovely comedy duo and are known as “the world’s fastest humans.”
Nichols then studied Method acting under Lee Strasberg. Without any luck he returned to Chicago and joined the group, The Compass Players, together with Elaine May, Paul Sills, Byrne Piven, Joyce Hiller Piven and Edward Asner helped start the famed "Second City Improv" company.
As a writer, producer and director, Mike Nichols has received many important awards in his career. He made his Broadway debut with Barefoot in the Park and he earned his first Tony award. His first stage play was Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf? which was then followed by The Graduate where he received an Academy Award as best director. He has won two best direction of a play Tony Awards in the 1960s for Luv and The Odd Couple and Plaza Suite. He won another Tony Award for directing The Prisoner of Second Avenue in 1970s, The Real Thing in 1984 and Spamalot in 2005. Another Tony Awards came in 2012 for the best director of a play on the recent revival of Death of a Salesman that was originally written by Arthur Miller in 1949. This Broadway production stars the acclaimed actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Mike Nichols has been married four times. His first marriage was with Patricia Scott (197-1960), second with Margo Callas (1963-1974), third with Annabel Davis-Goff (1975-1986) where they had three children. His present wife is the ABC news anchor Diana Sawyer and they were married on the 29th April of 1988.