Elaine May

Name	Elaine May
Birth name	Elaine Berlin
Birth date	April 21, 1932
Birth place	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Spouse	Marvin May (1 daughter Jeannie Berlin)Sheldon Harnick (1962-1963) (divorced)David L. Rubinfine (1964-1982)

Elaine May (born April 21, 1932) is an American film director, screenwriter and actress. She achieved her greatest fame in the 1950s from her improvisational comedy routines in partnership with Mike Nichols.

Personal life

Elaine Berlin was born in Philadelphia, the daughter of the theatre director and actor Jack Berlin and actress Ida Berlin. Ida Berlin would have a small role in her daughter's film, A New Leaf. As a child, Elaine occasionally performed with her father in the Yiddish theater he ran. In 1942, the family moved to Los Angeles, California.

She married Marvin May in the late 1940s as a teenager and gave birth to a daughter, actress-director-screenwriter Jeannie Berlin (who is known by her mother's maiden name) in 1949; the couple later divorced. In 1962, she married lyricist Sheldon Harnick, best known for his work in Fiddler On The Roof.

However, they divorced a year later when May became romantically involved with her psychoanalyst, Dr. David L. Rubinfine, who was also married. Their divorces and subsequent marriage (in 1964) led to Rubinfine being ostracized by the New York psychoanalytic establishment, particularly after his ex-wife's suicide. May and Rubinfine remained married until his death in 1982, though they lived separately in later years.

It is suggested in Janet Coleman's book The Compass that Elaine May and Mike Nichols had a short affair early in their association. When Elaine and Mike Nichols were asked by Tommy Smothers at a comedy festival in 1999 "so did you guys have an affair or what?" Elaine replied, "Exactly."

Career

In 1947, May studied acting under veteran theater and screen actress Maria Ouspenskaya.

Stage

In 1950, May attended the University of Chicago and Playwrights Theatre in Chicago. In 1953, she became a member of the improvisational theatre group The Compass Players, founded by Paul Sills and David Shepherd, which later became The Second City. She remained a member until 1957.

During her membership, May met Mike Nichols, who was then starring in one of Sills' plays, and began a successful partnership with him. Together they formed a standup comic duo, performing in New York clubs and making several TV appearances.

In 1960, they made their Broadway debut with An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May; the original-cast album won the Grammy Award in 1962 for Best Comedy Performance. Throughout the 1960s, thanks in part to the successful work with Nichols, May wrote, directed, and acted in various forms of theatre. In addition, she wrote and performed for radio and recorded several comedy albums. Her work with Nichols during this time was critical to establishing improvisation as a form of comedy. Their stage act and records featured just the two voices with a solo pianist - played by Marty Rubenstein.

Nichols and May starred together in a stage version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Long Wharf Theatre in 1980. Nichols had directed the film version in 1966.

May formed and directed an improvisational company called The Third Ear in New York that included Reni Santoni, Peter Boyle, Renee Taylor, and Louise Lasser. On Tuesday nights the cast would improvise with invited guests, like Mark Gordon who had also been in the Compass Players.

Playwriting

May also wrote several plays during this period. Her greatest success was the one-act Adaptation. Other stage plays she has written include Not Enough Rope, Mr Gogol And Mr Preen, Hot Line, After the Night and the Music, Power Plays, Taller Than A Dwarf, and Adult Entertainment. She also directed the off-Broadway production of Adaptation/Next.

Film

Directing

May made her film writing and directing debut in 1971 with A New Leaf, a screwball comedy based on Jack Ritchie's The Green Heart. (Ritchie would later retitle the story after A New Leaf.) The film starred Walter Matthau and May in the lead roles. Originally, May handed in a 180-minute black comedy that the studio cut into a 102-minute weird romance.

Her second directorial effort was The Heartbreak Kid. This comedy was critically lauded and modestly popular, based on a screenplay by Neil Simon, and starring Charles Grodin, Eddie Albert, Cybill Shepherd and May's own daughter, Jeannie Berlin. Albert and Berlin each received Supporting Actor/Actress Oscar nominations for the film.

May followed up these two comedies with the bleak crime drama entitled Mikey and Nicky. Budgeted at $1.8 million and scheduled for a Summer 1975 release, the film ended up costing $4.3 million and not coming out until December 1976. She was eventually fired by Paramount Pictures (the studio that financed the film), but succeeded in getting herself rehired by hiding two reels of the negative until the studio gave in. The film's subsequent failure at the box office assured her banishment from Hollywood, until actor-producer Warren Beatty decided to give her one more chance.

Their collaboration, Ishtar (1987), co-starring Beatty and Dustin Hoffman, was an even more notorious disaster than her previous film. Largely shot on location in Morocco, the production was beset by creative differences among the principals and enormous cost overruns. The advance publicity was terrible and the reviews were worse, marking it as one of the biggest cinematic disasters of all time. To date, May has not directed another film.

Writing

Elaine May received an Oscar nomination for updating Here Comes Mr. Jordan as Heaven Can Wait. May reunited with her former comic partner, Mike Nichols, for The Birdcage in 1996. The film relocated the classic French farce, La Cage aux Folles, from France to South Beach, Miami. May received her second Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay when she again worked with Nichols on Primary Colors in 1997.

Filmography

Films as writer

Such Good Friends (1971) - Under the pseudonym Esther Dale

Heaven Can Wait (1978) - Co-Writer (Oscar nominee and WGA winner)

Reds (1981) - Co-Writer (Uncredited)

Tootsie (1982) - Co-Writer (Uncredited)

Labyrinth (1986) - Co-Writer (Uncredited)

Dangerous Minds (1995) - Co-Writer (Uncredited)

The Birdcage (1996) (WGA nominee)

Primary Colors (1998) (Oscar nominee and WGA nominee)

Films as writer and director

A New Leaf (1971) - also role as Henrietta Lowell (WGA nominee)

Mikey and Nicky (1976)

Ishtar (1987)

Films as director

The Heartbreak Kid (1972)

Films as actress

Enter Laughing (1966) - as Angela

Luv (1967) - as Ellen Manville

Bach to Bach (1967) - as a Woman

A New Leaf (1971) - as Henrietta Lowell (Golden Globe nominee, Best Actress (musical or comedy))

California Suite (1978) - as Millie Michaels

In the Spirit (1990) - as Marianne Flan

Small Time Crooks (2000) - as May (National Society of Film Critics winner, Best Supporting Actress)

External links

Category:1932 births Category:American Jews Category:American film actors Category:American stage actors Category:American screenwriters Category:American film directors Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Female film directors Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Jewish actors Category:Living people Category:Saturn Award winners Category:Second City alumni Category:Women comedians Category:Women screenwriters

Category:Writers Guild of America Award winners