In 1965, Warner surprised many industry observers when he purchased the rights to "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", Edward Albee's searing play about a destructive marriage. From the beginning, the project was beset by controversy. Ernest Lehman's script, which was extremely faithful to Albee's play, stretched the U.S. film industry's Production Code to the limit. Jack Valenti, who just assumed leadership of the Motion Picture Association of America, recalled that a meeting with Warner and studio aide Ben Kalmenson left him "uneasy". "I was uncomfortable with the thought that this was just the beginning of an unsettling new era in film, in which we would lurch from crisis to crisis without any suitable solution in sight," Valenti wrote. Meanwhile, Lehman and the film's director, Mike Nichols, battled with studio executives and exhibitors who insisted that the film be shot in color rather than black and white. These controversies soon faded into the background while Jack Warner challenged the validity of the production code by publicly requiring theaters showing the film to post an "Adults only" label and restrict tickets sales accordingly, all as a marketing tease to entice audiences to see what warranted that restriction. At this, the MPAA — wary of a repeat of the embarrassment it had trying to censor the highly acclaimed film, "The Pawnbroker" — gave in and approved the film as a special exception because of its quality, which led to other filmmakers to challenge the code themselves even more aggressively. Upon its release, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" was embraced by audiences and critics alike. It secured 13 nominations from the Academy including one for Best Picture of 1966.