Honoree Mike Nichols and journalist Diane Sawyer during the 38th AFI Life Achievement Award honoring Mike Nichols held at Sony Pictures Studios on June 10, 2010 in Culver City, California. The AFI Life Achievement Award tribute to Mike Nichols will premiere on TV Land on Saturday, June 25 at 9PM ET/PST. (Getty)
Diane Sawyer and Mike Nichols were a true power couple. Apart, she was an experienced journalist with a reputation for quality work and he was a director behind some of the best films ever made. Nichols’ death in 2014 due to a heart attack was an unexpected ending to a 26-year love story that had been one of Hollywood’s most enduring.
The Couple Met While Traveling
Mike Nichols and Diane Sawyer attend the Golden Globes.
The couple met while traveling on the now discontinued Concorde. According to Nichols, the meeting was not what either of them expected. “She was hiding in the lounge because she hadn’t done her hair or something. I found her and said, ‘You’re my hero.’ And she said: ‘No, you’re my hero. Do you ever have lunch?’ She wanted to interview me for 60 Minutes. I pretended that I was up for it, and we had about 14 lunches.” Nichols told the Hollywood Reporter.
They Were Married For 26 Years
Director Mike Nichols and Diane Sawyer
Nichols and Sawyer were married in 1988; it was the first marriage for the bride and the fourth marriage for the groom. The pair would stay married for 26 years. During that time, Nichols continued to direct hit films and Sawyer would grow to become one of the respected reporters in the world.
Nichols Was Married Three Times Before Sawyer
It took the late Mike Nichols 51 years to complete his EGOT.
Before Diane came into the picture, the famous director had already been married three times. His first marriage was to singer Patricia Scott in 1957. Their relationship was short-lived and ultimately ended in 1960. In 1963, Nichols would marry his second wife Margo Callas after dating for just one year. The marriage would last 11 years and produced one daughter, Daisy, before finally before ending in 1974. The next Mrs. Nichols would be an Irish novelist and screenwriter named Annabel Davis-Goff. Their 11-year marriage started in 1975 and gave the director two more children. It was during his separation and divorce from Goff that he would meet Sawyer.
Sawyer’s Had Her Own High Profile Romances
For Diane part, her romances stayed more low key with two major exceptions. The first was college sweetheart Bill Bradley. “She was a Junior Miss and she heard about Bill Bradley, this All-American, and she dropped him a note and said she’d like to meet him,” Bradley’s college roomate told the New York Post. While the romance between the two ended long ago, they were seen dining out together as the widowed Sawyer adjusted back to single life.
The other high profile romance would be with actor Warren Beatty. In this case, the relationship would fail to go very far. It was yet another romance for the actor, who is said to have dated Hollywood’s most recognizable stars. As far as talk of their relationship goes, neither Sawyer nor Beatty have ever publicly discussed their time together.