The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood’s Hidden Genius by Carrie Courogen

Elaine May (nee Berlin) was by no means simply half the groundbreaking improvisational duo, (Mike) Nichols and May. She was a Tony winning actor, an Academy Honorary Award recipient, a director, playwright, screenwriter and prolific screen doctor. Despite congenitally tangled hair and looking as if she dressed in the dark, men pursued her with their tongues hanging out. 

Dad Jack Berlin, was an actor in a traveling Yiddish theater troupe. Elaine made her stage debut at three and by ten had been enrolled in 50 schools.  When Jack died, there were only pawn tickets left. She and mom Ida moved to her mother’s sister in Chicago. Her uncle was in the Mafia. “Those Italians were our drivers!” Ida declared in denial. She was tough and unsympathetic.  

The Mays moved to Los Angeles. Elaine’s natural intellect was over the heads of her class. She was bored. Quitting school at 14, the teenager read. At 16, she married a 19 year-old toy inventor. One wonders why. Two years later, she returned to Ida toting baby Jeannie (Jeannie Berlin became an actress and screenwriter). Mom stepped up. In fact, she raised Jeannie alone until the girl was nine.

Elaine May, c. 1960 “The Goddess was more evident in Elaine than in most people-all her aspects-the beautiful and the wrathful one,” Del Close would say of his former flame, Elaine May.

Elaine decided to go to college and ended up – after testing – at Chicago University, a hotbed of eccentricity, analysis, sex, drugs and fierce opinions. The undergrad majored in hanging out and writing plays. Fellow students remember her as having “cruel wit and raw unbalanced intelligence”; “over the top, but with great conviction.” She joined Paul Sills’ Tonight at 8:30 – and every company it successively became. Mike Nichols was also in the troupe. “I could fucking hear her breathe with hostility,” he later recalled.

Several years later, Mike chanced to see Elaine at a train station, approached and, with an East Indian accent spontaneously asked, “May I seet down?” “If yo veesh,“ she responded. (Like one of her screenplays.) They got on a train carrying on the impersonations. Kismet. Mike moved to New York to study acting. In Chicago, Elaine lived lean, stealing from grocery stores. She took in Sills as a paying roommate and wrote like crazy. Now The Compass Players, the company did a new piece every week. Mike returned to the fold broke.

The two began to work together. They were inseparable, so in tune that most people thought them married. We’ll never know whether they became lovers. “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” was outlawed; Lucy and Desi (I Love Lucy) slept in separate beds, but Nichols and May got away with skits featuring sex. Audiences came. Mike got married and returned to New York. He was replaced by the besotted Del Close who could keep up with her but not rein her in.

Frustrated with inadequate scene partners, Elaine joined him. They had $40 between them and the phone number of producer Jack Rollins. “We weren’t exactly starving,” Elaine said, “We were just sort of involuntarily watching our weight.” The story of their huge success follows. Mike kept company with the beautiful people. Elaine brought Ida, Jeannie and a housekeeper to a new apartment.

Elaine May and Mike Nichols (Public Domain)

Nichols and May wrote their own bios for a first record album. Hers read: “Elaine May does not exist.” She eschewed parties and (for the rest of her professional life) either didn’t show up to accept awards or left immediately upon receipt. They authored and acted in animated commercials. Mike divorced. Elaine went into five-day-a-week psychoanalysis. The act was turned into a wildly popular Broadway show, but joy of being in the moment evolved into rote repetition. Elaine quit. She was very briefly married to eternal optimist Sheldon Harnick, a pairing of opposite natures.

The author calls the next her subject’s “flop era.” Nothing seemed to take. Elaine married her ex-analyst and became a full time mother to his girls. She taught, occasionally acted, and wrote. Hollywood called. Cast in films, Elaine acquired a reputation for being difficult by insisting on reshoots. “The devastating thing about Elaine is that she’s better at everything – writing, acting, directing…” director Clive Donner.

A New Leaf (1971) Directed by Elaine May
Shown on the set, at left: Walter Matthau; right of center: director Elaine May

Making her directorial debut as well as acting her script, A New Leaf, Elaine was undercut by Walter Matthau’s endless raunchy jokes. Asked whether she expected an Academy Award nomination, she replied, “Certainly not. I’m just hoping people will stay awake.” She directed Heartbreak Kid. Written and directed by her, Mickey and Nicky ran over schedule and budget. The film ended up in a lawsuit. Elaine script doctored Wolf for Jack Nicholson, Tootsie for Sidney Pollack, Here Comes Mr. Jordan and Reds for Warren Beatty. What About Bob, I’m Not Rappaport, Heartburn…followed. She rarely took credit.

Behind the scenes of Mikey and Nicky (1976) Directed by Elaine May
Shown from left, on the set: John Cassavetes, Peter Falk, Director Elaine May

Ishtar was as huge and pilloried a flop as Heaven’s Gate. It starred Warren Beatty and “to balance the other end of the schmuck equation,” Dustin Hoffman. Disastrous shooting in the Moroccan desert is described in detail. The film lost 25 million dollars. Briefly segueing into theater, Elaine then directed her last two films, The Birdcage and Primary Colors. Over the next 12 years, Stanley Donan estimates he proposed to her 171 times. Awards poured in.

Apparently, Elaine was convinced to go on stage again for The Waverly Gallery – her Tony – if the producer would agree to arrange installation of a garbage disposal in her apartment. Ben Brantley made the play The Times Critic’s Pick.  She didn’t want to go to the awards, slipped out before meeting press, and opted out of her own Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony at Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

April 2022, Elaine May turned 90. (She’s 92 now.) She hated birthdays. “Marlo Thomas wouldn’t have it. The party sang ‘Jingle Bells’ as the cake came out.” (Courogen)

Carrie Courogen spent three years trying to get her subject to talk with her. She sat across from The San Remo in a blonde wig hoping to catch the artist coming or going. May was not going on the record about her life. Over the years she admitted to being a purposefully unreliable narrator about it on a regular basis. Her life was HER life. Courogen talked to friends, peers, and admirers, but remained “frustrated or infuriated or bewildered” by absence of the woman she grew to love.

The book puts May’s life and career in context of her times. It goes backstage and behind cameras. We hear observations and opinions from those in her trajectory (not including Jeannie Berlin) as well as conjecture by the author. Carrie Courogen offers a positive portrait of a multi-talented, seriously funny, and private Elaine May. Only more priceless May quotes and, of course, the subject herself, could improve it.

All Photos except the one marked Public Domain by Photofest
Author Photo by Sylvie Rosokoff

Miss May Does Not Exist
The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood’s Hidden Genius by Carrie Courogen
St. Martin’s Press

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