One of Nichols’ great innovations in The Graduate was to cast Dustin Hoffman—short, nondescript, obviously Jewish—in a role written as a WASPy Robert Redford type (“a walking surfboard,” in Hoffman’s words). Nichols himself was something of an inversion of that contrast—tall, blonde, and legendarily articulate and urbane, he was nonetheless a refugee from Hitler, a German-born Jew who came to the United States at the age of 8. His hair fell out due to a whooping cough shot, his father died when he was 12, and the only English phrases Nichols (then known as Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky—Igor to his schoolmates) knew upon arriving in America were “I do not speak English” and “Please, do not kiss me.” Often approaching his early work as a sardonic outsider-observer, Nichols matured into a role as the ultimate Broadway insider, a reluctant interviewee but a legendary raconteur for lucky initimates. “Sometimes I feel I should be paying admission,” said Diane Sawyer, his wife.
“What is it really like” is the one idea Nichols returned to again and again when he could be coaxed into interviews. In 2004, he expanded on how that basic notion informed all his work:
I think I have always been interested in one main question in making a film or doing a play: What is this really like Not, what is the convention Or, what is the agreed-upon approach here But, what is this moment, this emotion, this action, this experience like when it happens in life In order to try to answer that question, sometimes we have to leave reality behind and try to go where the poetry goes. But the question is always the same.
Rare recordings of many of Nichols’ theatrical productions can be viewed on-site at the Library for the Performing Arts’ Theatre on Film and Tape Archive, including The Gin Game, Annie, Waiting For Godot (with Robin Williams), The Seagull, Monty Python s Spamalot, Death of a Salesman, and Betrayal.
Source: www.nypl.org
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