Mike Nichols Among Winners of 2006 Common Wealth Awards

Tony Award-winning Spamalot director Mike Nichols is one of five luminaries who has been named as a recipient of the The Common Wealth Awards of Distinguished Service, which continue nearly three decades of honoring some of the world's greatest achievers and leaders.

"These prestigious awards are presented annually to individuals who have enriched and improved the world through their exceptional lifetime achievements," state press notes.  The 2006 Common Wealth Awards were announced on March 1st.  The winners are:

* John Glenn, former U.S. Senator, astronaut and heroic pioneer of American space exploration, for Government
* H.M. Queen Noor of Jordon, a leading voice for global peace-building, human rights and conflict recovery issues, for Public Service
* Mike Nichols, pre-eminent and award-winning director of stage and screen, for Dramatic Arts
* Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and two-term Poet Laureate of the United States, for Literature
* Anderson Cooper, leading broadcast journalist and CNN news anchor of Anderson Cooper 360°, for Mass Communications

The honorees will receive a shared prize of $250,000 at the Common Wealth Awards celebration on April 1st at the Hotel du Pont in Wilmington.

The Common Wealth Awards of Distinguished Service were first presented in 1979 by the Common Wealth Trust, created under the will of the late Ralph Hayes, an influential business executive and philanthropist. Hayes conceived the awards to reward and encourage the best of human performance worldwide. With the 2006 presentation, the awards will have conferred more than $3.5 million in prize money to 157 honorees of international renown. The awards are funded by the Common Wealth Trust.  The final selection of the honorees is the decision of the Executory of the Common Wealth Trust.

Nichols has won Tony Awards for his direction of Spamalot, The Real Thing, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, Plaza Suite, Luv, The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park, and was also nominated for directing The Gin Game, Comedians, Uncle Vanya and The Apple Tree; he has also been nominated for and won Tonys as a producer.  He won an Academy Award for directing The Graduate, and was nominated for his work on The Remains of the Day, Working Girl, Silkwood and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.  He also garnered Emmy Awards for directing both parts of "Angels in America" on HBO and for the same channel, "Wit."