Mike Nichols, RIP: Fast start, strong finish

The first movie Mike Nichols directed was "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe."

It won five Oscars.

The second film Mike Nichols directed was "The Graduate."

It won one -- for best director.

Now that's the way to start your movie career.

Of course, Nichols, who died Wednesday at 83, was already a success by that time. He was half of a popular comedy team with Elaine May in the 1950s. He would remain popular with critics and audiences, and is one of the few people to score the EGOT -- winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award.

Smart, funny and obviously talented, Nichols, like any artist, had his hits and misses, but the hits were usually pretty spectacular. For instance, his adaptation of "Angels in America" for HBO is one of the great miniseries ever produced. He won an Emmy for it. He also won an armful of Tony awards, including best director as recently as 2012 for "The Death of a Salesman." He and May won a Grammy for their 1961 comedy album "An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May."

What's more, for a guy with so many notable achievements and important films, he also had some underrated movies, like "Carnal Knowledge," "Working Girl," "Postcards from the Edge" and "Primary Colors." His last film, "Charlie Wilson's War," is one of Tom Hanks' better latter roles, and Julia Roberts hasn't been nearly as good since.

But for movie fans, "The Graduate" is hard to top as a career highlight. Dustin Hoffman is exceptional as the recent college graduate struggling to figure out what to do with his life -- as many young people were in 1967, when the film was released. It struck a nerve with younger audiences (the Simon & Garfunkel soundtrack helped).

It's the rare film that both captured a moment in time but also heralded something new. American films were entering a new Golden Age, a time when studios didn't meddle with productions as much, at least when it came to content. "The Graduate" was cool, but it was also beautifully constructed and masterfully directed. Nichols had tapped into the pop-culture conversation while also making something lasting, something that, when seen today, still feels like a '60s movie but whose themes and feeling are still relevant. (Wes Anderson would pay homage to the pool scene in his great 1998 film "Rushmore," with Bill Murray jumping in and sinking to the bottom, much like Hoffman's Benjamin did; in both cases the scene showed us men struggling to find answers in their lives.)

When great directors are discussed, Nichols is sometimes left off the list. Who knows why, maybe because he bounced from the theater to movies and TV so often no one medium could get a handle on him. But his track record alone places him among the best, in a lot of different areas. For a fitting tribute, pop in "The Graduate."

RIP.