Mike Nichols, Celebrated Director, Dies at 83

Interesting note on Nichols and May; at one point in their partnership, they were contributors to “Monitor,” the long-running NBC radio program that aired on weekends across the country. Nichols and May provided comedy bits that were sometimes used to fill dead air if there were technical problems with a remote, or a guest didn’t show up.

Nichols and May did most of their Monitor appearances on tape, and it was a long, hard grind to get usable material. Sometimes, they’d spend eight hours in the studio and emerge with nothing that could be put on the air.

Bob and Ray were also on retainer for Monitor. They worked live and could easily fall into one of their classic routines, or ad lib something off the top of their heads. Nichols and May were hilarious in their heyday, but when producers needed something funny to fill some time, they turned to Bob and Ray.

In the early 1950, Mike Nichols was one of the first people hired at the Chicago Fine Arts radio station WFMT. He wrote this test to audition announcers on the station.

“The WFMT announcer’s lot is not a happy one. In addition to uttering the sibilant, mellifluous cadences of such cacophonous sounds as Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt, Carl Schuricht, Nicanor Zabaleta, Hans Knappertsbusch and the Hammerklavier Sonata, he must thread his vocal way through the complications of L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and other complicated nomenclature.
However, it must by no means be assumed that the ability to pronounce L’Orchestre de la Societé des Concerts du Conservatoire de Paris with fluidity and verve outweighs an ease, naturalness and friendliness of delivery when at the omnipresent microphone. For example, when delivering a diatribe concerning Claudia Muzio, Beniamino Gigli, Hetty Plumacher, Giacinto Prandelli, Hilde Rössel-Majdan and Lina Pagliughi, five out of six is good enough if the sixth one is mispronounced plausibly. Jessica Dragonette and Margaret Truman are taken for granted.
Poets, although not such a constant annoyance as polysyllabically named singers, creep in now and then. Of course Dylan Thomas and W.B. Yeats are no great worry. Composers occur almost incessantly, and they range all the way from Albeniz, Alfven and Auric through Wolf-Ferrari and Zeisl.
Let us reiterate that a warm, simple tone of voice is desirable, even when introducing the Bach Cantata “Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis,” or Monteverdi’s opera “L’Incoronazione di Poppea.”
Such then, is the warp and woof of an announcer’s existence “in diesen heil’gen Hallen.”

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