Book Review: Ash Carter & Sam Kashner's Oral History of the Great Mike Nichols

“There’s nobody left to impress.” Those are the words of actor Peter Gallagher. He was describing how he felt when legendary director Mike Nichols died in 2014. Actors yearned to be guided by Nichols, and they desperately wanted to win this most brilliant man’s favor.

The multiple Tony and Academy award winning director of plays (Barefoot In the Park, The Odd Couple, etc.) and movies (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate, Primary Colors, etc.) had that kind of effect on people from all walks of life. Not only was Nichols uncommonly skilled when it came to helping actors understand the characters they were playing in ways that unearthed performances they didn’t know they had within them, Nichols had the charm and the charisma that was arguably a consequence of him doing brilliantly what he was put on this earth to do. He was as director J.J. Abrams explained it “the highest stature person in any room he was in,” the man every woman wanted to sit next to at dinner parties, plus let’s not forget that his fourth wife was no less than Diane Sawyer; Sawyer the one the already incomparable Nichols “strove to be better for,” the person this most unequal of persons aimed to be the equal of. This says a lot about Sawyer when it’s remembered that no less than polymath actor Richard Burton once observed about Nichols that he and Noel Coward were the two people he knew with “the capacity to change the world” anytime they walked into a room.

All of the above, and much, much more can be found in Ash Carter and Sam Kashner’s unputdownable new oral history of Nichols called Life Isn’t Everything: Mike Nichols, As Remembered by 150 of His Closest Friends. Movie and stage buffs will find the book essential, so will those fascinated by the entertainment industry itself, and then for those who choose to find them, there are countless economic lessons in this spectacular book. My review will focus on the economics of Mike Nichols, as my book reviews generally do.

Notable about economics right off the bat is that Nichols attended the University of Chicago from 1950-53. Interesting about a University that’s very much associated with free-market thinking today is that David Shepherd, a rich heir descended from Vanderbilts, and eventual founder of a Chicago-based theater where Nichols performed in the early days, turned up at UofChicago after hitchhiking from the Catskills. The trucker who drove him, after hearing incessant Marxist propaganda from the millionaire during the drive, told him “I think you might not get killed at the University of Chicago.” It seems the school had the reputation of “Red U” back when Nichols attended.

Shepherd as previously alluded founded the Compass Theatre, which was where Nichols and Elaine May introduced their revered-to-this-day improvisational sketches. Ultimately the comedy duo brought their act to New York, only to reach much bigger audiences with their material; some of it initially created at Compass. Shepherd was seemingly bothered that his initial patronage wasn’t being credited as the stars of Nichols and May rose, only for the “Marxist” to comment to colleague Jeffrey Sweet that “I should have sued Mike and Elaine” since “They created all that stuff as work for hire for me, and I think I have a right of ownership.” Sweet’s response, as recounted in Life Isn’t Everything (from now on referred to as Life), is something one wishes every politician and policy type fearful about “Chinese” intellectual property theft would internalize. Sweet recalls replying, “’David, the smartest thing you ever did was not suing Mike and Elaine!’” Was he really going to ask other actors to do Mike and Elaine’s material?” Sweet’s crucial point was that true genius is near impossible to imitate. No doubt Shepherd could have taken control of what he theoretically owned, but it wasn’t worth much if not performed by Nichols and May. Applied to the alleged theft of “American” technology by the Chinese, policy types insult American genius when they presume it’s so easily reproducible. No. Not a chance. Nichols and May were by all accounts extraordinarily funny, but their lines would have been met with silence if others presumed to perform in their proverbial shoes.

Considering the copycatting that has naïve American policy types and politicians up in arms more broadly, they would be wise to take a deep breath. In any dynamic industry there’s always relentless imitation, lifting of ideas, plagiarism, and what some would call “stealing.” The greater truth is that all of this imitation amounts to progress. Most everything is derivative of something else. So while Nichols’ films didn’t have a signature look or feel to them in the way that a Woody Allen or Whit Stillman film does, he fully acknowledged learning how to make movies by to some degree expanding on what others did. According to theater director Gregory Mosher, Nichols would tell aspiring directors to “Watch A Place In the Sun seventy-five times, and then watch it twenty-five more times, and then call me and we’ll talk.” Mosher added that Nichols believed “everything you need to know about the movies is in that film.” The greats in any field have invariably expanded on what others did. That the Chinese still just a few decades removed from desperate communism are copying American genius speaks to progress, and the eventual arrival of remarkable Chinese imports that will enhance our living standards in remarkable ways.  

As for the money that Marxists claim to disdain usually because they’ve got lots of it (think Friedrich Engels, think The Nation publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel, think Bernie Sanders….), Woody Allen recalls how his and Nichols’ manager Jack Rollins once told him “Don’t think about money and you’ll make money.” It seems Rollins’s implicit point was that people should do what they’re passionate about, and consequently good at, without regard to the compensation. Passionate people doing what elevates them tend to achieve in ways that eventually pay off financially. Free trade is the driver of passion in the workplace precisely because it fosters the division of labor without which there can be no specialization, and almost certainly no passion.

In Nichols’ case, the money flowed in early, particularly once he started directing. His first film was the critically acclaimed Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which was showered with multiple Academy Award nominations, and is thought by some critics to have been the rightful Best Picture winner. Nichols followed it with The Graduate which, while not exactly this reader’s cup of tea, is broadly viewed as one of the best movies ever made. On Broadway around this time, Nichols was teaming up with writer Neil Simon on the way to huge successes like Barefoot In the Park and The Odd Couple. Nichols’ brother, Robert, recalls theater director and producer Joe Papp saying “Nichols is not a success,” and his angle at the time was that “he hasn’t had a failure yet.” Call it a cliché, but failure is the ultimate teacher. Realization of errors is the path to progress because we’re forced to come to terms with bad habits developed, bad hires, inattention to detail, bad investments, writing, etc. In Nichols’ case failure for him was a movie that embarrassed him (The Day of the Dolphin), and one that mostly only achieved acclaim long after it was released (Catch-22), but the errors made him even better. It’s all a reminder that politicians do us no favors when they try to shield us from our mistakes with the money of others as they “fight” recessions. More realistically, we’re all experiencing occasional recessions at varying times that are merely all of us who comprise the economy learning from our mistakes such that we become better and better at what we do. Failure made Nichols even more of a success, as it will make us. If politicians want to help, the best they can do is do nothing. Mistakes are too precious for us to be shielded from them.

So good did Nichols’ name become as a filmmaker, he ultimately had “final cut” of sorts. Colleague Bobbie O’Steen recalls in Life that “Mike was the first director since Orson Welles to have been given a contract by a major studio that specified he didn’t have to show his dailies to anyone.” Understand what a big deal this was. Then as now, movie studios weren’t in the business of losing money, which helps explain why most film directors endure close oversight from the so-called “suits.” Nichols was only able to negotiate what exceedingly few had because his vision was so trusted, not to mention that what he brought to screen was viewed as certifiable box office. This is a lesson in credit. When we seek investors, or when we borrow, we’re not seeking dollars. We’re seeking what dollars can be exchanged for. Very few can attain the kind of “credit” necessary to make a feature film, let alone one that will be created sans oversight from the sources of finance. It’s a reminder that the Fed can’t decree “easy credit” as all too many naively believe, rather credit is what individuals bring to the workplace each day to varying degrees. In Nichols’ case, his credit was near perfect such that he didn’t even have to go over his dailies with anyone. Credit is earned through achievement, not bestowed by central planners. The Fed’s power is a myth.

So why were Nichols’ films so good? This question is realistically impossible to answer. If there were a secret ingredient to filmmaking success, genius would be reproducible. Except that it’s not as we know from the Shepherd example previously discussed, among other things. Still, we can look for clues. One thing we learn about Nichols in Life was how much time he spent in pre-production learning deeply about an upcoming film’s characters. Carnal Knowledge writer Jules Feiffer recalled Nichols grilling him endlessly, day after day, intensely eager to understand the characters Feiffer had drawn so that he could bring them to life on the big screen. Feiffer’s point was that absent Nichols, Carnal Knowledge isn’t Carnal Knowledge. It’s all a reminder that investment is frequently much more than money. The good investors, as in the ones that oversee very successful investments, bring enormous knowledge to the companies they’re committing capital to. It’s so often said financiers don’t create anything, that they add no value to the economy other than money. What a silly view. The great investors of the billionaire variety see potential where others don’t, and like Nichols they make great what all too many would make mediocre at best.

The above example also speaks to the importance of foreign investment. The knowledge foreign investors bring to businesses hoping to globalize their operations is incalculable. This should be considered with China once again top of mind. Washington is more and more policing the inflow of Chinese investment under the obnoxious pretense of “national security.” What Washington is really doing is blocking the arrival of knowledge that enables progress.   

Thinking about knowledge in terms of Nichols, he was viewed as brilliant. Someone who could talk credibly about all manner of subjects. But even giants stumble. Leaving aside what some would view as more obvious failures, during the making of Working Girl Carly Simon played for Nichols and Sawyer Let the River Run. We know in hindsight that the song was perfect, that it fit Nichols’ film about a striving "immigrant" from Staten Island perfectly, and that it kicked off the movie even more perfectly. That’s why it’s fascinating to read Simon’s recollection of Nichols later calling to break the bad news to her that “We tried another song over the beginning and we really think we like that better.” The song: Witchy Woman by the Eagles. Can you imagine? Simon recalls that she screamed “No! No, you can’t do that!” Simon ultimately got her way to the unbeknownst relief of millions. From an economic point of view, government officials routinely aim to slow down the growth of rising companies through anti-trust threats. Their warrantless belief is that some companies will become too powerful. No, giants once again always stumble. In commerce, the present rarely predicts the future. Anti-trust is a superfluous conceit. Even Mike Nichols got things wrong on occasion. The great are prone to error too, only for opportunities to open up for new strivers.

That the above is true speaks to how amazing was Nichols' longevity. The entertainment business is attractive for countless reasons, and precisely because it is, it’s rare for someone to stay on top for very long. Igor Mikhail Peschkowsky had substantial stature in the entertainment industry from the 1950s right up to when he died in 2014. Wait a second, Igor Mikhail Peschkowsky? Yes, that was the name Nichols was born with. He grew up in Berlin, but escaped in the late 1930s with his younger brother as it became more and more apparent that Hitler had horrid plans for the Jewish people in Germany, and beyond. Nichols’ father, Pavel, had already departed Germany for New York City, only to change his name to Paul Nichols.

Which brings us to the most important economic lesson of this book: economists believe almost monolithically that World War II ended the Great Depression. It would be hard to find a more horrifyingly incorrect belief, and it’s a belief that indicts the economics profession like no other. As is made clear throughout Life, Nichols never got over how close he came to being hauled into Hitler’s concentration camps, only to be exterminated. Thankfully he wasn’t, and his extraordinary brilliance made the world a better place. At the same time, we have to ask whom the world lost in this most needless of wars. What cancer cures, paralysis cures, transportation innovations, and great films were lost in the battles, bombings and concentration camps that snuffed out the lives of tens of millions? War is economically stimulative? Every reader owes it to humanity to correct what is so shockingly obtuse. And for those who say “the U.S. economy gained” because the global economy was crushed, please go back to school. You wear your shocking ignorance on the most prominent of sleeves. Economic progress isn’t a consequence of others failing or dying, but is instead the certain result of more and more talented hands and minds participating in the production of goods and services on the way to feverish specialization that enables the participants to do that which most elevates their unique skills and intelligence. The disaster that was World War II horridly slowed this abundant process, and nearly deprived us of Mike Nichols. Once again, we all owe it to humanity to correct what shames a self-unaware economics profession like nothing else.

In closing, director David Hare recalls 2/3rds through Life that “I’ve never been bored by a Mike Nichols story.” Hare was lucky. He knew Nichols. Most of us can only imagine what Nichols was like, and Life Isn’t Everything will give you a great sense of this remarkable human being. If you read it, rest assured you’ll never be bored.