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Mike Nichols won an Academy Award for directing "The Graduate," his second film, released in December 1967. Nichols learned about directing from Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg. Dustin Hoffman, the young star of "The Graduate," and Paul Simon, whose songs are included on the soundtrack, describe working on the film, which earned many Academy Award nominations as well as Nichols' win.
Reed was always at the forefront of American avant-garde music, beginning with creation of the Velvet Underground in 1965. Gritty and realistic, the brutal honesty in Reed’s lyrics and sound made him a cultural icon of the disenfranchised throughout the ’60s and ’70s. From punk rock to grunge, he has had an unparalleled influence on the American music scene.
Bebop, a style of jazz developed in the 1940's, changed American music but wasn't taken seriously for much of Charlie Parker's life. This mid-century popcorn television commercial shows how the public's perception of bebop was riddled with stereotypes.
Charlie Parker's nickname "Yardbird" came to be while he was on the way to a gig with some fellow musicians and involved a bird in a yard that had an unfortunate fate.