- Sully Boyar, TheSopranos, TV, 2001. “I’m the wrong Jew. You need a whole other kind of Jew for this doctor. I’m miscast, forgive me.” This was Nichols, the great stage-screen director, talking to the show’s creator David Chase, about Dr Krakower, Carmela Soprano’s Ukrainian-Russian shrink, who told her in the seventh episode of Season Three, to “take what is left of the children,” divorce Tony, and accept none of his “blood money” as almony or child support… “There was a reading with about 40 people sitting around many tables put together, with a lot of spaghetti behind us, and we read that week’s script,” Nichols, recalled. “I was the only person at the table who had to act. Everybody else was their character.” He told Chase: “I’m no good, because I’m not an actor.” His former comedy partner, Elaine May, disagareed: “He’s an amazingly good actor, really good, who constantly says he isn’t.” This proved the penultimate of the 43 screen roles of Boyar, a Brooklyn lawyer-turned actor. (Nichols’ company was Friwaft Inc – Fools Rush In Where Angels Fear To Tred, Inc).
>>Tributes
Meryl Streep was working with him, on his HBO plans for Terrence McNally’s Tony-winning play, Master Class, when he died. “He was an inspiration and joy to know, a director who cried when he laughed, a friend without whom, well, we can’t imagine our world, an indelible irreplaceable man.”
Steven Spielberg called his death was a “seismic loss”. He added: “Mike was a friend, a muse, a mentor, one of America’s all-time greatest film and stage directors, and one of the most generous people I have ever known. For me, The Graduate was life-altering – both as an experience at the movies as well as a master class about how to stage a scene. Mike had a brilliant cinematic eye and uncanny hearing for keeping scenes ironic and real. Actors never gave him less than their personal best – and then Mike would get from them even more. And in a room full of people, Mike was always the centre of gravity.”
Birth year: 1931 Death year: 2014 Other name: Usual occupation: Film director Casting Calls: 1