Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Dutin Hoffman, and More Remember Mike Nichols

Last November, the Broadway community mourned the loss of acclaimed director, producer, writer, and performer Mike Nichols, who passed away at age 83. Vanity Fair collected a thorough oral history of the EGOT-winner, as told in anecdotes and fond memories from film stars like Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, and Dustin Hoffman. See what these stars had to say about Nichols as a director and friend!

"I think Mike was so loved by his actors because he was an actor," Meryl Streep says. "Yes, yes, of course he had the director jones and style and panache; he knew how to set the scene and move the camera, but what he was known for, in my community, was how great he was at allowing a performance that he knew resided within someone and giving actors the space in which to release it.... If he cast you, he trusted you to bring it, and the only piece of direction I ever remember him giving was: surprise me."

On the director's generosity, Tom Hanks recalls, "We were going on VACATION with the whole family, but it got screwed up and so we weren't going anywhere. Mike said, Well, why don't you take my place on the Vineyard? I'd never even been to the Vineyard. So he let us use this ridiculously historic place-Chip Chop is the name of the house. It used to belong to [actress] Katharine Cornell."

Dustin Hoffman recounts his preliminary experience with the Nichols-directed THE GRADUATE, "My agent, Jane Oliver, calls me and says, They want to audition you for this movie called The Graduate, with Mike Nichols directing. I read it, and I said, What the f*ck is going on? I'm not right for this. A five-foot-eleven-inch Wasp with blond hair, blue eyes? I'm a character actor, but there's a limit. I said, Mr. Nichols, you want somebody like Robert Redford-I didn't even know Redford had tried out. He said, You don't want to do it because you're Jewish. And I said, Yes. And he said, Well, maybe [Benjamin's] Jewish inside. And I said, O.K., I'll audition."

Click here to read more accounts from Steve Martin, Emma Thompson, Eric Idle, Natalie Portman, and many more!

Mike Nichols was among the most celebrated people in the history of show business, one of only a handful of people to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award. Mike Nichols has won more Tony Awards for Best Direction of a Play than any other individual. His six nods were for BAREFOOT in the Park (1964), Luv and The Odd Couple (1965), Plaza Suite (1968), The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1972), The Real Thing (1984), and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (2012). He has also won in other categories for directing the musical Monty Python's Spamalot (2005), and for producing Annie (1977) and The Real Thing (1984) under the company he founded, Icarus Productions, making it a total of nine Tony Award wins. He also received eight additional nominations.

Nichols started out on Broadway as a performer in An Evening With Mike Nichols and Elaine May, which he co-wrote with May. The show premiered in 1960 and ran for 306 performances. His full Broadway biography can be found on The Internet Broadway Database (ibdb.com) here.

He made his cinematic directorial debut directing Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in "Who's Afraid of VIRGINIA Woolf" and later won the Academy Award for his direction of "The Graduate."

Among his upcoming projects, Nichols was slated to helm a screen adaptation of Terrence McNally's Master Class starring Meryl Streep as Maria Callas.

Nichols was born in Germany in 1931. He is survived by his wife, Diane Sawyer; his three children Daisy, Max and Jenny; and four grandchildren.

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