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Mike Nichols, who died Wednesday, was a fearless director, lauded for his unparalleled ability to "present truly adult themes without compromise" and to seamlessly jump back and forth between film, television, and stage.

鈥淢ike Nichols did not shy away from controversial subjects in his work 鈥� really controversial subjects, not subjects around which controversy is manufactured,鈥� says Ron Bishop, professor in the Department of Culture and Communication at Drexel University in Philadelphia. 鈥淔olks in my line of work have this argument all the time: Can popular culture and the arts also educate and compellingly illuminate the human condition?"

Mr. Nichols answered that question with a resounding "yes."

Nichols, a Jew, was born in Germany in 1931. He and his family fled the country at the start of World War II. Nichols recalled the day he arrived in the United States in 1939 in a 2012 interview .听

"My father was waiting for us on the dock, and the first thing I saw was a kosher deli and in the neon sign were Hebrew letters. I said to my dad, 鈥業s that allowed?鈥� And he said, 鈥楬ere, it is.鈥� Unbelievable luck. Undeserved luck. Life-shaming luck.鈥�

Nichols brought that understanding of hardship to his work.

Wheeler Winston Dixon, editor of the Quarterly Review of Film and Video at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln,聽notes that 鈥淣ichols almost single handedly insisted that the screen should be allowed to present truly adult themes without compromise, ending a long period in which the theater could be more frank about life than the movies.鈥�

Dixon also says that everyone wanted to work with Nichols, and at same time he had a superb visual sense. " 'Virginia Woolf' won the Oscar for Haskell Wexler's super black and white camerawork 鈥� so that he was a consummate auteur, able to work effectively as both an actor's director as we as being an assured visual stylist."

鈥淣ichols knew how to "open up" a play on the screen,鈥澛燼dds Dixon, 鈥渟o that it didn't seem artificial 鈥� his work with the actors is intimate and real, but he also managed to make his films work in the real world, so the result was never 'stagey' or artificial.鈥�

In short, says Dixon, "Nichols made the jump from stage to screen with such style and grace that he became the model for anyone who might want to follow in his footsteps, but nobody really could do it as well 鈥� even Elia Kazan's work in film is more interested in performance than visuals. Nichols could do it all, from the first time out 鈥� and brilliantly.鈥�

That versatility earned Nichols the coveted聽EGOT 鈥� four聽Emmys, a Grammy, an Oscar, and eight Tony Awards, to be exact.

He won his first聽major award聽in 1961, when he and Elaine May won the Grammy for Best Comedy Performance for their album "An Evening With Mike Nichols And Elaine May." He won聽an Oscar in 1967 for directing "The Graduate."

He will be remembered mentioned with the all-time Hollywood greats, observers say.

鈥淟ike Orson Welles,聽to whom he was聽occasionally聽compared,聽Nichols managed聽not only to聽work in聽many different artistic聽forms聽(theater,聽radio,聽film, television)聽but also to create聽masterpieces in those聽forms. In 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf,'听Nichols, a theater director who'd never made a movie, managed to reshape that play in uniquely cinematic ways,鈥� says聽Robert Thompson, founder of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University in New York. It was just a year later, notes Thompson, that Nichols 鈥渄irected one the jewels in the crown of the American cinema, 'The Graduate.'听Although he employed聽many of the same skills聽in all of聽his聽work 鈥� a sharp eye,聽an聽ability to work聽with all kinds of actors 鈥� he聽knew the difference between the stage and screen聽and shaped his material accordingly.鈥�

鈥淭he Graduate鈥� made a star of then unknown actor, Dustin Hoffman, the 21-year-old protagonist, a Southern Californian and a track star who sleeps with the wife of his father鈥檚 best friend and then falls in love with her daughter.

鈥淭here is no piece of casting in the 20th century that I know of that is more courageous than putting me in that part,鈥� Mr. Hoffman,聽who was nearly 30 when he played Benjamin Braddock,聽said in an interview in The New Yorker in 2000.

Nichols's creations and his unique talents remained relevant through the decades, helping to translate both serious and humorous material from one medium to another.

He brought Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Angels in America" to a national audience with a highly acclaimed 2003 miniseries for HBO. 聽

He directed Neil Simon鈥檚 early comedies 鈥淏arefoot in the Park鈥� and 鈥淭he Odd Couple鈥� in the 1960s, the zany Monty Python musical, 鈥淪pamalot,鈥� four decades later, and nearly another decade after that, an acclaimed revival of Arthur Miller鈥檚 bruising masterpiece, 鈥淒eath of a Salesman.鈥�

Nichols was married to ABC broadcaster Diane Sawyer.