by Sam Wasson
51 Sarah Vaughan: Mike Nichols to author.
52 “You can’t plan jazz”: Ibid.
52 Del began experimenting: Johnson, The Funniest One in the Room, 54.
52 Del and Mike clashed: Mike Nichols to author.
52 “It is so easy to go out”: Kleinfeld, “Del Close,” 146.
52 “perceptions of reality”: Ibid.
52 “The entire history of improvisational theater”: Coleman, The Compass, 231.
53 “Under Elaine’s direction”: Del Close to Ted Flicker, undated letter, Flicker Collection, USC, Box 2.
53 “She could explore”: Mike Nichols to author.
53 made Mike more jealous: Ibid.
53 “Where does a girl get laid”: Nesteroff, “An Interview with Theodore J. Flicker.”
53 And he always would be: Charna Halpern to author.
53 Paul Sills tried: Shepherd to Flicker, July 18, 1957, Flicker Collection, Box 2, Folder 5.
54 “The air was filled with pompous personages”: Daniel Belgrad, The Culture of Spontaneity: Improvisation and the Arts in Postwar America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 198, n.10.
54 Between bites of Stroganoff and borscht: Rice, “A Tilted Insight,” 70.
54 “a set of ad-libbed little skits”: Nichols, Becoming Mike Nichols.
54 “I didn’t laugh”: Robert Wool, “Mike and Elaine: Mirrors to Our Madness,” Look (June 21, 1960), 46–52.
54 When the coffee came: Nichols, Becoming Mike Nichols.
54 “Why don’t you become my manager?”: Jack Rollins to Betsy Borns, “Jack Rollins,” Interview (September 1985).
55 “They improvise, Jack”: Mike Nichols to author.
55 “My god,” he thought: Mike Nichols, in “Mike Nichols and Elaine May—Take Two,” American Masters, season 10, episode 5, directed by Phillip Schopper, aired May 22, 1996 (Eagle Rock Entertainment).
56 “We weren’t frightened”: Betty Etter, “Nichols & May, Unlimited,” Radio TV Mirror, July 1958.
56 “It was bizarre”: Mike Nichols to author.
56 Mike’s one suit: Etter, “Nichols & May, Unlimited.”
56 “They were totally adventurous”: Jack Rollins, in “Mike Nichols and Elaine May—Take Two,” American Masters.
56 “What is it?”: Kashner, “Who’s Afraid of Nichols & May?,” audio recording accompanying article, VanityFair.com.
56 “You can open in two weeks”: Etter, “Nichols & May, Unlimited.”
56 seventy dollars: Ibid.
56 “You can fill in down at the Village Vanguard”: Ibid.
56 “Skip them. I’m ready”: Kashner, “Who’s Afraid of Nichols & May?”
57 “under and around”: Mike Nichols, Inside the Actors Studio, season 3, episode 7, hosted by James Lipton, aired May 18, 1997.
57 “What is this scene we’re discovering really about?”: Peter Applebome, “Always Asking, What Is This Really About?,” New York Times, April 25, 1999.
57 “Hello, Michael. This is your mother speaking”: Mike Nichols to author.
57 “she screamed with laughter”: Ibid.
57 “There it was!”: Ibid.
58 “Each of our mothers thought”: Susan King, “Graduate Degree,” Los Angeles Times, June 9, 2010.
58 “Where’s Del?”: Paul Mazursky to author.
58 the psychoanalyst Theodor Reik: Johnson, The Funniest One in the Room, 61.
59 “the most humorless period in American history”: Kercher, Revel with a Cause, 4.
59 “You get your nose rubbed into this solemnity”: Ibid., 95.
59 “There are no Marx Brothers movies”: Ibid., 348.
59 its “fifth freedom,” the freedom to laugh: Ibid., 26.
59 “emasculation of American humor”: Ibid., 52.
59 “It was the first time I had ever”: Jules Feiffer to author.
59 “What do we do now?”: Gavin Smith, “Of Metaphors and Purpose,” Film Comment, May/June 1999.
59 “My name is Woody Allen”: Betsy Borns, “Jack Rollins,” Interview, September 1985.
60 “were touching on some kind of truth”: Lahr, “Making It Real.”
60 A month later, Allen returned: Borns, “Jack Rollins.”
60 “we suggested he should consider trying to perform”: Ibid.
60 six grand he’d earned: Johnson, Something Wonderful Right Away, 179.
4. 1959–1962
61 Wong Cleaners and Dyers: Bernie Sahlins, Days and Nights at the Second City: A Memoir with Notes on Staging Review Theatre (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001), 24.
61 The Mob watched: Ibid., 38.
61 stapled carpet to the floor: Sweet, Something Wonderful Right Away, 180.
61 To find the dressing room: Sheldon Patinkin to author.
61 bentwood chairs: Sahlins, Days and Nights at the Second City, 37.
62 “sexy about the look of the place”: Sweet, Something Wonderful Right Away, 54.
62 “Severn, it’s Paul. I’m doing this thing”: Carol Sills to author.
62 funniest woman Sills had ever seen: Ibid.
62 “I didn’t know what was going on”: Sheldon Patinkin, The Second City: Backstage at the World’s Greatest Comedy Theater (Naperville, Ill.: Sourcebooks, 2000), 33.
62 “We weren’t particularly definite in our plans”: Sweet, Something Wonderful Right Away, 159.
63 “Most of the time,” one said: Bill (Allaudin) Mathieu to author.
63 “North Side Story,” by Elaine May: Les Brown, “Stung by Off-B’way Try Last Year, Chi Going in for Cabaret-Legit,” Variety, November 18, 1959.
63 the Common Man: Sheldon Patinkin to author.
64 “precise social observation”: Philip Roth, Conversations with Philip Roth, edited by George J. Searles (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1992), xi.
64 “planned every second”: Coleman, The Compass, 259.
64 your coat to Melinda Dillon: Mike Thomas, The Second City Unscripted: Revolution and Revelation at the World-Famous Comedy Theatre (New York: Villard, 2009), 7.
65 “The success of the early Second City company”: Bill Mathieu to author.
65 “the declining skill of satire is kept alive”: Thomas, The Second City Unscripted, 5.
65 “the best satire to be seen in the U.S.A. today”: “Playboy After Hours—Theater,” Playboy (December 1961), 16–18.
65 “I practically lived at Second City”: Thomas, The Second City Unscripted, 9.
65 “And it became, in those days, the thing to do”: Ibid., 8.
65 Ted Flicker and Elaine May were sitting: Feldman, “A Critical Analysis of Improvisational Theater in the United States.”
65 be individuals together: Joan Darling to author.
66 Paul Sills moved his mother to Chicago: Carol Sills to author.
66 He played the Gate of Horn: “Gate of Horn, Chicago,” Weekly Variety, August 12, 1959.
66 “the inherent perversity of objects”: Kleinfeld, “Del Close,” 1987.
66 about the drugs: peyote: Johnson, The Funniest One in the Room, 63.
66 “the best type personality for space travel”: Wahls, “Del Close Is Way Out.”
66 “a reality lubricant”: Kleinfeld, “Del Close,” 1987.
66 She gave him money: Johnson, The Funniest One in the Room, 143.
66 The Do-It-Yourself Psychoanalysis Kit: Johnson, The Funniest One in the Room, 73.
66 He turned her on to grass: Sweet, Something Wonderful Right Away, 144.
66 “disturbed his muse”: Johnson, The Funniest One in the Room, 47.
66 Sahlins overlooked Del’s legacy: Jane Sahlins to author.
67 Motion Picture Daily: Motion Picture Daily, January 13, 1960, 14.
67 “You cannot fail”: “Mike & Elaine: 2 Kids with Some Grown Up Thoughts About TV,” Variety, June 25, 1958.
67 “Elaine May has a wonderful motto”: Barbara Gelb, “Mike Nichols: The Special Risks and Rewards of the Director’s Art,” New York Times Magazin
e, May 27, 1984.
67 “If I ever get organized”: Margaret McManus, “TV’s New Ad-Libbing Comedy Team,” Baltimore Sun, August 10, 1958.
67 old slacks and sneakers: Edmund Wilson, “Bunny in Winter,” GQ, February 1993.
67 “I understand you were born”: Mel Gussow, “Mike Nichols: Director as Star,” Newsweek, November 14, 1966.
67 “Because if I don’t like the interviewer”: Joyce Haber, “Elaine May Has a Thing on Not Talking to Press,” Los Angeles Times, July 7, 1968.
67 “It’s like that terrible feeling”: Kevin M. Johnson, “Elaine May: ‘Do You Mind Interviewing Me in the Kitchen?,’” New York Times, January 8, 1967.
67 Passionate and devoted analysands: Stephen Farber and Marc Green, Hollywood on the Couch: A Candid Look at the Overheated Love Affair Between Psychiatrists and Moviemakers (New York: William Morrow, 1993), 202.
68 “Everything we’ve done”: Gordon Cotler, “For the Love of Mike—and Elaine,” New York Times, May 24, 1959.
68 “was in this particular case”: Gavin Smith, “Of Metaphors and Purpose,” Film Comment, May/June 1999.
68 drawing blood and real-life tears: Mike Nichols to author.
68 “I’m psychotic with fear”: Mike Nichols, in Becoming Mike Nichols.
68 Theatergoers of late 1960: Alexander H. Cohen Papers, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Box 61, Folders 17 and 18.
69 That night, October 8, 1960: Ibid.
69 “When you do it every night”: Mike Nichols, in Becoming Mike Nichols.
69 “Oh, could you possibly sing it”: Ibid.
69 “best claim to greatness”: Kercher, Revel with a Cause, 238.
69 “Take what?”: “This Is 40: Judd Apatow & Mike Nichols Q&A,” video capture date December 13, 2012, https://www.amazon.com/This-40-Judd-Apatow-Nichols/dp/B00L4ST68Y.
70 “Satire is revenge”: Kashner, “Who’s Afraid of Nichols & May?”
70 the bathroom mirror: Alan Arkin, on Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show, no. 158, October 14, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTbezHCVdBo.
70 Hugo’s, the hot dog stand: Alan Arkin to author.
70 “I wasn’t loose enough”: Alan Arkin, An Improvised Life: A Memoir (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2011), 38.
70 “If you ever want a job”: Alan Arkin to author.
70 “Making that call”: Arkin, An Improvised Life, 39.
71 “something solid out there”: Ibid., xii.
71 “I had no interest in being myself”: Ibid., 41.
71 “nervous Jewish mother”: Sheldon Patinkin to author.
71 “a character that was serious”: David Galligan, “Carol Burnett on Alan Arkin: ‘I Love Him,’” Hollywood Drama-Logue, June 4, 1981.
71 “Then I found a body of characters”: Alan Arkin to author.
71 “They were all unemployed”: “Alan Arkin is Coming,” Life, July 22, 1966, p. 33.
72 “I don’t mean to seem like a prude”: Second City Archives, The Second City, Chicago.
72 “came out great”: Sheldon Patinkin to author.
72 “took three weeks of screaming”: Sweet, Something Wonderful Right Away, 234.
72 “I think Paul suffered”: Sheldon Patinkin to author.
73 “Where that idea came from”: Arkin, An Improvised Life, 47.
73 “The truth of the matter is”: Alan Arkin, on Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show, no. 158, October 14, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CncBFKdL70Q.
73 “They are those rare moments”: Alan Arkin, Halfway Through the Door: An Actor’s Journey Towards the Self (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), 5.
73 “When you do a show for a year”: Mike Nichols to author.
73 “Form is the thing that interests me”: Cecil Smith, “Mike Nichols’ Midas Touch with Broadway Comedies,” Los Angeles Times, December 26, 1965.
73 “I once saw a very rich man”: “Interview with Mike Nichols,” Playboy, June 1966.
74 “This is fucking bullshit”: Larry Hankin to author.
74 “Del had a problem”: Ibid.
74 He fought Sahlins: Jane Sahlins to author.
74 “because assault in the sense”: John Guare, “Comedy and Rage,” New Theater Review, Spring 1988.
74 “Why do you want us to do”: Ibid.
75 “The issues are immaterial”: Ibid.
75 born stand-up, Joan Rivers: Sheldon Patinkin to author.
75 “Del did not love women”: Ibid.
75 “I have no idea why”: Alan Myerson to author.
75 “It wasn’t even an interview”: Ibid.
75 “Del was a mythological figure”: Larry Hankin to author.
75 “Del was also driven”: Alan Myerson to author.
76 “Del was becoming a director”: Larry Hankin to author.
76 a thousand one-minute auditions: Nesteroff, “An Interview with Theodore J. Flicker.”
76 “Do you want to improvise?”: Joan Darling to author.
76 “instant theater”: Nat Hentoff, “Instant Theater,” Reporter, March 30, 1961.
76 “to find a form for improvisational theater”: Ted Flicker to Howard Taubman, April 27, 1963, Flicker Collection, USC, Box 3, New York Premise Publicity.
76 “The Premise,” he wrote: Ibid.
77 “Dustin Hoffman tried out”: Joan Darling to author.
77 “setup for the actors”: Dustin Hoffman to author.
77 Scenes had to be short: Joan Darling to author.
77 “We are going to do three kinds”: Ted Flicker to David M. Dorsen, June 1962, Flicker Collection, USC, Box 3, Folder 13.
77 “If we were in the middle”: Joan Darling to author.
78 parody of Paddy Chayefsky’s Marty: Jerry Talmer, “Theater: The Premise,” Village Voice, January 1, 1960.
78 “We had to read every newspaper”: Joan Darling to author.
78 “Being political”: Ibid.
78 “They call out the names of people”: William Wolf, “Off-Beat and Off-Broadway, Flicker’s New Show Clicks,” Asbury Park Sunday Press, December 18, 1960.
78 “They somehow liked seeing”: Ted Flicker to Bernard Bralov, December 28, 1961, Flicker Collection, USC, Washington, DC, Premise Publicity, Box 3.
78 “Tom Aldredge did a composite”: Joan Darling to author.
79 “it’s a writer’s device”: Buck Henry to author.
79 “and then, at the end”: Ibid.
79 “Since Broadway got so square”: John Crosby, “Celebrations and Coffee,” New York Herald Tribune, January 30, 1961.
79 Harold Clurman, Tyrone Guthrie: Flicker Collection, USC, Washington, DC, Premise Publicity, Box 3.
79 “We saw Woody”: Joan Darling to author.
79 “but we intended to be slicker”: Buck Henry to author.
79 “I remember thinking”: Ibid.
80 “Del would tell us”: Ibid.
80 “We were a growing community”: Joan Darling to author.
80 “I can’t believe what I’m seeing”: Nesteroff, “An Interview with Theodore J. Flicker.”
5. 1962–1963
81 “It was as though”: Kashner, “Who’s Afraid of Nichols & May?,” audio recording accompanying article, VanityFair.com.
81 “If things had been different”: Mike Nichols to author.
81 The American sense of humor, Elaine sensed: Thomas Thompson, “Whatever Happened to Elaine May?,” Life, July 28, 1967.
81 “dramatized, as no previous evidence has”: Robert J. Landry, “JFK—Show Biz in Love,” Variety, May 23, 1962.
82 “I like you, Bobby”: Kashner, “Who’s Afraid of Nichols & May?,” audio recording accompanying article, VanityFair.com.
82 “I would have gone on”: Mike Nichols to author.
82 “We thought they wouldn’t possibly”: Joan Darling to author.
83 “Do you have any objection”: James Feron, “Quips on Kennedy Barred in London,” New York Times, July 21, 1962.
83 threatened to send Her Majesty’s troops:
Leonard Harris, “Americans Defy British Censors,” New York World-Telegram and Sun, April 6, 1963.
83 secretly submit scripts: Ibid.
83 “In view of the admission”: James Feron, “Britain Curbing American Revue,” New York Times, October 20, 1962.
83 Peter O’Toole: Joan Darling to author.
83 “I told him the best thing”: Matt Fotis, Longform Improvisation and American Comedy: The Harold (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 37.
83 “He was the only one allowed”: Ed Sikov, Mr. Strangelove: A Biography of Peter Sellers (New York: Hyperion, 2002), 160.
84 “They should have fled”: Kevin Thomas, “Improvisation Advocate Tries to Turn On Actors,” Los Angeles Times, June 22, 1967.
84 “If you make fun of Prime Minister Macmillan”: Theodore J. Flicker, “Safe and Unsafe Satire at the Living Premise,” Daily Times, July 27, 1963.
84 “Can it be”: Kenneth Tynan, “Theater,” London Observer, September 23, 1962.
84 “an open forum”: Coleman, The Compass, 303.
84 “In the language of the Declaration”: Kerry T. Burch, Democratic Transformations: Eight Conflicts in the Negotiation of American Identity (New York: Bloomsbury, 2002), 168.
84 “Because of the chemistry”: Miles Davis, Miles (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 221–22.
85 “democratic mess”: Kercher, Revel with a Cause, 486.
85 “His idea was that his body”: Jack Helbig, “Friends and Coconspirators Recall the Crazed Career of an Improv Olympian,” Chicago Reader, March 11, 1999.
85 Del’s wife, Doris: Sheldon Patinkin to author.
85 Sheldon Patinkin raced: Ibid.
85 “It was pills”: Ibid.
86 “Del wanted to direct”: Ibid.
86 “in every way a catastrophe”: Mike Nichols to author.
86 “Cuts and revisions were”: Sam Zolotow, “Role in Musical to Carol Burnett,” New York Times, October 10, 1962.
86 Also whispering: Mike Nichols to author.
86 “Luckily my lawyer”: Ibid.
86 “the Blob”: Buck, “Live Mike.”
87 “Elaine gave me myself”: Joseph Gelmis, “A Dolphin Among Directors,” Los Angeles Times, December 16, 1973.
87 Blob in Jamaica: Buck, “Live Mike.”
87 “Oh, Mikey, you are so good”: Mike Nichols, interview with Stephen Galloway, “Director Mike Nichols on His 60-Year Career.”
