The iconic work of director Mike Nichols (1931-2014), adored by audiences and critics alike for such films as The Graduate, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Angels in America, will be celebrated on Sat, March 12 at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts with a one-day tribute that highlights two of his award-winning classic films and a panel featuring friends and colleagues of the late filmmaker. One of few individuals to win an Oscar, a Tony, an Emmy and a Grammy Award, Nichols achieved landmark status on Broadway and in Hollywood from the 1950s through 2014, the year he passed away. Screenwriter Buck Henry (Catch-22, The Graduate) and producer Lawrence Turman (The Graduate) will be joined by Vanity Fair editor Sam Kashner to reminisce, share stories and discuss the impact the legendary stage and screen director had on their lives and work (additional panelists to be announced). The panel, moderated by Pete Hammond, takes place on the stage of Bram Goldsmith Theater at The Wallis between screenings. Admission to the panel discussion is free and is available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Additionally, the highly acclaimed films Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and The Graduate (1967) will be screened at The Wallis at 2:00pm and 7:30pm, respectively, on March 12. Nichols' debut film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, starring
Elizabeth Taylor and
Richard Burton as an aging couple who draw an unwitting younger couple into their bitter and frustrated relationship, garnered 13 Academy Award nominations and five wins. The Graduate, which paired then unknown actor
Dustin Hoffman as a recent college graduate who is seduced by the older
Anne Bancroft, quickly became a critical success and an American cinematic classic film earning seven Academy Award nominations, and winning Nichols the Oscar for Best Directing.
Single film tickets are now available for $15 (prices subject to change). For more information or to purchase, visit
TheWallis.org, call
310.746.4000 or stop by in person at the Wallis
Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts Ticket Services located at 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd.,
Beverly Hills, CA 90210. Ticket prices subject to change.
Buck Henry has written the screenplays for the films The Graduate, Catch-22, The Owl and the Pussycat, What's Up, Doc?, The Day of the Dolphin, Protocol and To Die For, among others. He co-directed (with
Warren Beatty) and appeared in Heaven Can Wait, as well as wrote, directed and appeared in First Family. In television, he co-created (with
Mel Brooks), story-edited and wrote for the series "Get Smart." He created the series "Captain Nice" and "Quark," and was a writer/performer on "The Garry Moore Show," "The
Steve Allen Show," "That Was the Week That Was," and "The New Show." Henry also hosted "Saturday Night Live" ten times. He has appeared as an actor in numerous television shows and comedy/drama shows including "Murphy Brown," "Tales from the Crypt," "Falcon Crest," "Will and Grace," "30 Rock," "The Daily Show with
Jon Stewart" and "Hot in Cleveland." He wrote and hosted segments of PBS's "The Edge" and the BBC-PBS series "Great Railway Adventures." On stage, he has appeared on Broadway, most recently in the long-running and award-winning comedy Art and the Lincoln Center Production of Morning's at Seven, as well as has appeared Off-Broadway and in regional theater. He has acted in over forty films including Taking Off, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Gloria, Eating Raoul, The Player, Grumpy Old Men and L.A. Short Cuts. His awards include an Emmy, an Obie, two Academy Award nominations, a British Academy Award and a Writer's Guild Award. He has also written for various magazines and newspapers.
Sam Kashner is a Contributing Editor at
Vanity Fair magazine. He is also the co-author of the New York Times best-selling book Furious Love:
Elizabeth Taylor,
Richard Burton and the Marriage of the Century, as well as the novel Sinatraland. Kashner also collaborated with
Mike Nichols on a number of stories for
Vanity Fair, including the celebrated reunion of the filmmaker and
Elaine May.
Lawrence Turman has produced forty films from The Graduate through The Great White Hope, The River Wild to American History X. He also directed two films and executive produced many for television. Turman was voted into the Producers Guild of America Hall of Fame, has been a juror at the Flanders Film Festival, guest lectured at La Femis in Paris, the Triangle Conference in Rome, Equinoxe in Bordeaux, the Polytechnic in Singapore, the UNIJAPAN Entertainment Forum at the Tokyo Film Festival, AFI, UCLA and NYU. His book, So You Want To Be A Producer, was published by Random House. Turman served on the Board of the Producers' Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, is a graduate of UCLA, and is currently chair of the MFA Peter Stark Producing Program at USC.
Pete Hammond (moderator) is currently the Chief Film Critic for Deadline Hollywood. For the past 5 years, he has also been Awards Editor and Columnist for Deadline where he covers the Oscar and Emmy Seasons. He is widely considered to be one of the pre-eminent awards season commentators for film and television. During his career, he has also served as film critic for MovieLine, Boxoffice Magazine, Backstage Magazine, Hollywood.com and Maxim magazine. In addition to writing, Pete is also the host of the extremely popular year-round KCET Cinema Series and UCLA Extension's Sneak Preview Winter Session where he screens a selection of films prior to their theatrical release and interviews the filmmakers. He has held producing positions at Entertainment Tonight, Extra, Access Hollywood, the
Arsenio Hall Show, the
Martin Short Show and AMC network. He is the recipient of five Emmy nominations for his TV writing and is the winner of the 1996 Publicists Guild of America's Press Award and is only the second journalist in the organization's 50 year history to receive the award twice winning again in 2013.
For more information about The Wallis, please visit:
TheWallis.org.
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