Ash Carter - Life isnt everything

RICHARD BURTON (actor): I decided to examine my reactions to all the men of talent I have ever met and which company would I prefer. After serious thought, lying on that silent bed, with that killing cigarette between my lips, how I love its round cool comfort, I dropped names all over my brain. Churchill? No! A monologist. Picasso? No! An egomaniac. Emlyn Williams? No. A mind like a cut-throat razor and a tongue to match. Dylan Thomas? No! Brilliant but uncomfortable. William Maugham? No! He cared only about playing bridge with losers. Gwyn Thomas? No! An impersonation of a chap who would like to be big strong and tough and who is actually fat weak and febrile. Camus? Possibly. But he had the infernal impertinence to die young. John Osborne? No! No leavening of humour. Gielgud? A strong contender for the Burton stakes, but I have a feeling that he finds me uncomfortable. Edward Albee? No! A week with him would be a life-time, and hed feel the same about me. Anyway, why go on? I reduced it to two people. Noel Coward and Mike Nichols. They both have the capacity to change the world when they walk into a room.

NICK PILEGGI (writer): Men are divided into two groups: there are guys who want to be Babe Ruth, and there are guys who want to be Mike Nichols. Thats it.

NATALIE PORTMAN (actress): Mike was like a ball of light in a room that everyone would gravitate toward.

RENATA ADLER (writer): No matter where he was, no matter who else was in the room, Mike was the source and center of intelligence and energy. This was not just as a performer. He could be bored or silent. It was his presence.

J. J. ABRAMS (director): He managed to remain the highest-stature person in any room he was in, yet he would simultaneously make everyone feel like they were his equal. It was just a kind of attitude and tone that he had. He simply had the sharpest wit and knew how to grab an audience and keep them in the palm of his hand.

JACK OBRIEN (theater director): Mike had that ability to make you think you were totally on his level, which was almost never true. You werent being manipulated; its a peculiar thing he had that made you better than you ordinarily werewittier, more attractive, more alert.

NICK PILEGGI: Around Mike, everybody got wittier. The anecdotes and stories you thought to tell were better. He just raised the level. He relaxed people and helped them become their best.

JOHN LAHR (writer): Mike was a sort of an entrepreneur of aplomb. He was prowess personified.

SAM WASSON (writer): Only the people who met him will ever know that as good as The Graduate was, Mike was better.

WOODY ALLEN (director): I was always in awe of Mike. He moved so effortlessly in any group. Never at a loss for conversation, always comfortable with the most celebrated people, always witty, always charming, always a desirable guest. And I was always such a schlemiel socially, and so awkward. I felt, that would be wonderful to have that kind of social charm and grace.

HANNAH ROTH SORKIN (former assistant): Somebody wrote a letter to Mike Nichols, Famous American Director, and it got to him. I worked in his office, so I actually got to see itits all true.

TOM HANKS (actor): Mikes imprimatur went on and on and on, from the 50s to well after the year 2000. Who transcends decades like that?

HANK AZARIA (actor): Oh my God, perhaps the greatest career everarguably, I suppose, but I dont know many who have done what he did for as long as he did it.

MATTHEW BRODERICK (actor): Anytime somebody would send me a script and ask, Who would you like to direct it?, Id always say Mike.

JOHN LAHR: There isnt anyone whom I can think of, except, I guess, youd have to say Woody Allen, who was a sort of triple threat. Mike was a star as a comedian, a star as a stage director, and a star as a film director. If you cover the theatrical scene as long as I have, those kind of people just dont come along very oftenonce in a generation.

CHER (performer): For me, he was more than a director. He was always more than a director.

JOHN CALLEY (executive): There are other directors who have a great love affair with the talent until its over. Mike is loyal, and hes capable of astonishing friendship.

CHRISTINE BARANSKI (actress): Hes the one person in show business I felt I never could afford to lose touch with.

JACK OBRIEN: They say of Noel Coward, his genius was friendshipthat it wasnt necessarily his erudition or all the rest, it was the fact that he was such an enthralling friend. He had that genius, which I think Mike had, in retrospect.

CHRISTOPHER WALKEN (actor): I absolutely adored him. In ones life, there are certain people who are just examples of how its done.

HARRISON FORD (actor): We formed a friendship that doesnt always happen in the movie business. I think he took his relationships with people and his loyalties to his friends very seriously. In fact, I dont think; I know that he did. Im not a guy who has a lot of friends, and few of them were as important to me as the relationship I had with Mike.

ART GARFUNKEL (musician): Didnt he have a great, rich, educated voice? Wasnt the sound of him making sentences the work of a consummate actor who was brilliant? Slightly nasal, resonant, very educated, wittymaking you fall in love with him sentence by sentence by sentence. The way he records is just amazing. Its so erudite. Its sophisticated. Its New York at its absolute best.

CANDICE BERGEN (actress): Everyone who was in his orbitand it was like an orbit, because he was the sununconsciously or consciously started to sound like him, because he had this great archness that he spoke with. Every now and then Id meet someone who knew Mike, and Id think,