
Acting
Elaine May
Born
1932-04-21 (94)
Place of birth
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Known for
Acting
Credits
47 titles
Elaine Iva May (née Berlin; born April 21, 1932) is an American actress, comedian, writer, and director. She first gained fame in the 1950s for her improvisational comedy routines with Mike Nichols before transitioning her career, regularly breaking the mold as a writer and director of several critically acclaimed films. She has received numerous awards, including a BAFTA Award, a Grammy Award, and a Tony Award. She was honored with the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in 2013, and an Honorary Academy Award in 2022. In 1955, May moved to Chicago and became a founding member of the Compass Players, an improvisational theater group. She began working alongside Nichols and in…
Known for
6.8No synopsis available yet.
The Merv Griffin Show
1962
7.0Four panelists must determine guests' occupations - and, in the case of famous guests, while blindfolded, their identity - by asking only "yes" or "no" questions.
What's My Line?
1950
7.5Picking up one year after the events of the final broadcast episode of "The Good Wife", an enormous financial scam has destroyed the reputation of a young lawyer, Maia Rindell, while simultaneously wiping out her mentor and godmother Diane Lockhart's savings. Forced out of her law firm, now called "Lockhart, Deckler, Gussman, Lee, Lyman, Gilbert, Lurie, Kagan, Tannebaum & Associates", they join Lucca Quinn at one of Chicago's preeminent law firms.
The Good Fight
2017
7.5Tonight Starring Jack Paar is an American talk show hosted by Jack Paar under The Tonight Show franchise from 1957 to 1962. It originally aired during late-night. During most of its run it was broadcast from Studio 6B inside the RCA Building. The same studio would also host early episodes of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Its theme song was an instrumental version of "Everything's Coming Up Roses", and the closing theme was "So Until I See You" by Al Lerner.
Tonight Starring Jack Paar
1957
7.0American Masters is a PBS television series which produces biographies on enduring writers, musicians, visual and performing artists, dramatists, filmmakers, and others who have left an indelible impression on the cultural landscape of the United States.
American Masters
1986
6.2No synopsis available yet.
The Steve Allen Show
1956
Film credits
2000s · 1 titles
1990s · 3 titles
6.1An aging publisher becomes a demon wolf and, with this newfound youthful vigor, fights to keep his job.
Wolf
1994
4.5After her husband loses his job, Marianne moves from Beverly Hills to a nightmare New York City. She hires ditzy psychic Reva to redecorate her apartment, and they end up being chased by a crazed killer.
In the Spirit
1990
6.5A documentary made for the PBS program American Masters about the comedy team Nichols and May.
Nichols and May: Take Two
1996
1980s · 1 titles
1970s · 5 titles
5.9The misadventures of four groups of guests at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
California Suite
1978
6.9Nick is desperate, holed up in a cheap hotel, suffering from an ulcer and convinced that a local mob boss wants him killed. Terrified, he calls Mikey, his friend since childhood and a fellow gangster. So begins a long night…
Mikey and Nicky
1976
7.3After running out of funds, Henry Graham, a carefree playboy, plots to marry and murder wealthy botanist Henrietta Lowell.
A New Leaf
1971
7.3A presentation of key events in the life of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. Beginning with the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, MLK is followed through major steps in his struggle to promote racial equality. Including footage of King's stirring speeches, it is a fitting tribute to his legacy, and features clips narrated by a wide range of celebrities, including Harry Belafonte, Paul Newman Charlton Heston, Ruby Dee, Burt Lancaster, Anthony Quinn, Walter Matthau, Ben Gazzara, Clarence Williams III, Joanne Woodward, and James Earl Jones.
King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis
1970
NRFrom many distinguished American poets comes the connecting narrative for this gorgeously photographed treatise on America the Beautiful and America the Increasingly Ugly.
All the Difference
1970
1960s · 5 titles
7.6A disillusioned college graduate finds himself torn between his older lover and her daughter.
The Graduate
1967
4.9Depressed by the direction his life is taking, Harry decides to take his own life by jumping off the Manhattan Bridge. At the last minute he's stopped by old friend Milt Manville, a successful stock broker. Milt, however, is facing his own problem: he has fallen out of love with his argumentative wife, Ellen. In a misguided effort to solve both of their problems, he introduces Ellen to Harry, hoping the two will fall in love.
Luv
1967
6.0The Fabulous Fifties, CBS, combines style, humor, and imagination. It was rich in touches of quality showmanship and equally rich in the memories of a decade which it revived. In recognition, the Peabody Television Award for entertainment is presented to The Fabulous Fifties, with a special word of praise for producer Leland Hayward and the top talent which appeared in this memorable entertainment special*. *The two-hour special featured comic takes and commentary about the previous decade by, among others, Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Dick Van Dyke, Shelley Berman, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Jackie Gleason, Eric Severeid and Henry Fonda.
The Fabulous Fifties
1960
4.8A machinist's apprentice in Depression-era New York, David dreams of becoming the new Ronald Colman. Defying the wishes of his parents, David lands a nonpaying job in a seedy theatrical production directed by broken-down ham Marlowe.
Enter Laughing
1967
10.0A Bach recording plays in a New York apartment, while off-screen a man and a woman in bed together for the first time engage in pseudo-intellectual conversation. Based on the Nichols and May sketch.
Bach to Bach
1967
Series credits
6.8No synopsis available yet.
The Merv Griffin Show
1962
7.0Four panelists must determine guests' occupations - and, in the case of famous guests, while blindfolded, their identity - by asking only "yes" or "no" questions.
What's My Line?
1950
7.5Picking up one year after the events of the final broadcast episode of "The Good Wife", an enormous financial scam has destroyed the reputation of a young lawyer, Maia Rindell, while simultaneously wiping out her mentor and godmother Diane Lockhart's savings. Forced out of her law firm, now called "Lockhart, Deckler, Gussman, Lee, Lyman, Gilbert, Lurie, Kagan, Tannebaum & Associates", they join Lucca Quinn at one of Chicago's preeminent law firms.
The Good Fight
2017
7.5Tonight Starring Jack Paar is an American talk show hosted by Jack Paar under The Tonight Show franchise from 1957 to 1962. It originally aired during late-night. During most of its run it was broadcast from Studio 6B inside the RCA Building. The same studio would also host early episodes of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Its theme song was an instrumental version of "Everything's Coming Up Roses", and the closing theme was "So Until I See You" by Al Lerner.
Tonight Starring Jack Paar
1957
7.0American Masters is a PBS television series which produces biographies on enduring writers, musicians, visual and performing artists, dramatists, filmmakers, and others who have left an indelible impression on the cultural landscape of the United States.
American Masters
1986
6.2No synopsis available yet.
The Steve Allen Show
1956
6.4The Dinah Shore Chevy Show is an American variety series hosted by Dinah Shore, and broadcast on NBC from October 1956 to June 1963. The series was sponsored by the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors and its theme song, sung by Shore, was "See the U.S.A. in Your Chevrolet", which continued to be used in Chevrolet advertising for several more years after the cancellation of the show.
The Dinah Shore Chevy Show
1956
7.0Omnibus is an American, commercially sponsored, educational television series.
Omnibus
1952
7.2"Everybody Loves Raymond" creator Phil Rosenthal travels the globe to take in the local cuisine and culture of Bangkok, Lisbon, Mexico City and more.
Somebody Feed Phil
2018
7.4DuPont Show of the Month is an acclaimed 90-minute television anthology series that aired monthly on CBS from 1957 to 1961. The DuPont Company also sponsored a weekly half-hour anthology drama series hosted by June Allyson, The DuPont Show with June Allyson. During the Golden Age of Television, DuPont Show of the Month was one of numerous anthology series telecast between 1949 and 1962. Superficially, it resembled Playhouse 90 and other anthologies, but DuPont Show of the Month focused less on contemporary dramas and more on adaptations of literary classics, including Oliver Twist, The Prince and the Pauper, Billy Budd, The Prisoner of Zenda, A Tale of Two Cities and The Count of Monte Cristo.
DuPont Show of the Month
1957
6.6A comedy that takes place in the 1960s during turbulent times in the United States when a middle class suburban family is visited by a guest who turns their household completely upside down.
Crisis in Six Scenes
2016
No synopsis available yet.
The Big Party
1959
Behind the camera
7.0Former Marine Louanne Johnson lands a gig teaching in a pilot program for bright but underachieving teens at a notorious inner-city high school. After having a terrible first day, she decides she must throw decorum to the wind. When Johnson returns to the classroom, she does so armed with a no-nonsense attitude informed by her military training and a fearless determination to better the lives of her students -- no matter what the cost.
Dangerous Minds
1995
7.0A gay cabaret owner and his drag queen partner agree to put up a false heterosexual front so that their son can introduce them to his fiancée's conservative parents.
The Birdcage
1996
7.3Frustrated with babysitting on yet another weekend night, Sarah, a teenager with an active imagination, summons the Goblins to take her baby stepbrother away. When little Toby actually disappears, Sarah must follow him into a fantastical world to rescue him from the Goblin King. Guarding his castle is the labyrinth itself, a twisted maze of deception, populated with outrageous characters and unknown dangers.
Labyrinth
1986
6.7Joe Pendleton is a quarterback preparing to lead his team to the superbowl when he is almost killed in an accident. An overanxious angel plucks him to heaven only to discover that he wasn't ready to die, and that his body has been cremated. A new body must be found, and that of a recently-murdered millionaire is chosen. His wife and accountant—the murderers—are confused by this development, as he buys the L.A. Rams in order to once again quarterback them into the Superbowl.
Heaven Can Wait
1978
6.2In this adaptation of the best-selling roman à clef about Bill Clinton's 1992 run for the White House, the young and gifted Henry Burton is tapped to oversee the presidential campaign of Governor Jack Stanton. Burton is pulled into the politician's colorful world and looks on as Stanton -- who has a wandering eye that could be his downfall -- contends with his ambitious wife, Susan, and an outspoken adviser, Richard Jemmons.
Primary Colors
1998
7.2When struggling, out of work actor Michael Dorsey secretly adopts a female alter ego—Dorothy Michaels—in order to land a part in a daytime drama, he unwittingly becomes a feminist icon and ends up in a romantic pickle.
Tootsie
1982
6.9An account of the revolutionary years of the legendary American journalist John Reed, who shared his adventurous professional life with his radical commitment to the socialist revolution in Russia, his dream of spreading its principles among the members of the American working class, and his troubled romantic relationship with the writer Louise Bryant.
Reds
1981
4.6Two terrible lounge singers get booked to play a gig in a Moroccan hotel but somehow become pawns in an international power play between the CIA, the Emir of Ishtar, and the rebels trying to overthrow his regime.
Ishtar
1987
4.6Two terrible lounge singers get booked to play a gig in a Moroccan hotel but somehow become pawns in an international power play between the CIA, the Emir of Ishtar, and the rebels trying to overthrow his regime.
Ishtar
1987
6.9Nick is desperate, holed up in a cheap hotel, suffering from an ulcer and convinced that a local mob boss wants him killed. Terrified, he calls Mikey, his friend since childhood and a fellow gangster. So begins a long night…
Mikey and Nicky
1976
6.9Nick is desperate, holed up in a cheap hotel, suffering from an ulcer and convinced that a local mob boss wants him killed. Terrified, he calls Mikey, his friend since childhood and a fellow gangster. So begins a long night…
Mikey and Nicky
1976
7.3After running out of funds, Henry Graham, a carefree playboy, plots to marry and murder wealthy botanist Henrietta Lowell.
A New Leaf
1971
7.3After running out of funds, Henry Graham, a carefree playboy, plots to marry and murder wealthy botanist Henrietta Lowell.
A New Leaf
1971
6.7Three days into his Miami honeymoon with needy and unsophisticated Lila, Lenny meets tall, blonde Kelly. This confirms his fear that he has made a serious mistake and he decides he wants to be with Kelly instead.
The Heartbreak Kid
1972
6.3With charm and wit, Nichols discusses his life and 50-year career as a performer and director.
Mike Nichols: An American Master
2016
5.1Julie Messinger, a repressed woman, grapples with her hidden passions when a routine hospital visit for her husband, Richard, spirals into chaos. As secrets unravel, her quest for authenticity clashes with societal expectations.
Such Good Friends
1971
Described as a "crazy, kooky comedy." Details TBA.
Crackpot
—
Described as a "crazy, kooky comedy." Details TBA.
Crackpot
—
10.0A Bach recording plays in a New York apartment, while off-screen a man and a woman in bed together for the first time engage in pseudo-intellectual conversation. Based on the Nichols and May sketch.
Bach to Bach
1967



