by Mark Harris
First published 2021
Mark Harris chronicles the remarkable transformation of Igor Peschkowsky, a hairless immigrant boy from Berlin, into Mike Nichols, one of America's most celebrated directors. Born to Jewish parents in 1931, Nichols fled Nazi Germany as a child, endured bullying and his father's early death, then reinvented himself as a comedy performer. Harris traces his meteoric rise from improv stages with partner Elaine May to Broadway triumphs and Hollywood success with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate. By thirty-five, Nichols owned a Central Park penthouse, counted Elizabeth Taylor and Jacqueline Kennedy as friends, and had won both Tony and Oscar awards. Yet Harris also reveals the darker currents beneath this glittering success: the depressions, addictions, and psychological wounds that drove both his creative genius and his self-destructive behavior. Drawing from interviews with over 250 collaborators including Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, and Robert Redford, Harris presents an unflinching portrait of artistic ambition and personal struggle.
Genres: biography, 20th-century, american, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: rags-to-riches, reinvention
Setting: Berlin, America, Central Park
Period: 1930s, 1950s, 1960s
688 pages · Hardcover · Penguin Press