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Main
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> Jack
Nicholson >
Jack Nicholson measurements > Nicholson Biography
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Jack
Nicholson
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Jack
Nicholson is the Hollywood celebrity who is most
like a character in some ongoing novel of our times. At
the age of 37, he learned that the woman he had always
believed to be his mother was his grandmother and that
his two older sisters were really his mother June and
his Aunt Lorraine.
The soap operaish twist
was worthy of "Chinatown" (1974) a la Evelyn Mulwray
(Faye Dunaway): "She's my sister. . . she's my daughter.
. . she's my sister and my daughter." Indeed, the timing
of his discovery could have influenced that screenplay
written by friend Robert Towne, unless it was just balmy
coincidence that art chose that precise moment to
imitate life in such a way. Nicholson began his storied
career in the Roger Corman-produced "Cry Baby Killer"
(1958) and over his next ten years in B-movies would
develop a low key acting style that combined the assured
masculinity of old Hollywood types (i.e. Bogart) with
the hipster neurosis of a new generation.
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Upon graduating
from high school in New Jersey, Nicholson visited
Los Angeles, where June had relocated, and remained
after getting a job as an office boy in MGM's
cartoon department. He drifted into Jeff Corey's
renowned acting class, meeting, among others, Towne.
His work in
low-budget films placed him in collaborations with
the likes of Monte Hellman, Bob Rafelson and Corman
who directed him in three early horror films ("The
Little Shop of Horrors" 1961, "The Raven" 1963 and
"The Terror" 1963). Boredom with acting led to his
first screenwriting credit, shared with Don Devlin,
on Jack Leewood's political thriller "Thunder
Island" (1963), a project in which he did not act.
Nicholson and Hellman both (along with Francis Ford
Coppola) provided Corman uncredited directorial
assistance on "The Terror". Nicholson then acted in
Hellman's "Back Door to Hell" (1964) and "Flight to
Fury" (1966), which he also scripted, before
journeying to the Utah desert to make back-to-back
films, Hellman's existential Westerns "The Shooting"
(1966) and "Ride the Whirlwind" (1966). |
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The 70s offered Nicholson at
his very best, a nuanced performer mastering his
appearance from film to film so that he never quite
seemed the same. The wavy hair of "Five Easy Pieces"
gave way to the middle-aged thinning of "The King of
Marvin Gardens (1972), then the crewcut of "The Last
Detail" (1973) and the central parting of "Chinatown"
(1974), but always underneath was the droll, bleakly
cheerful, enigmatic Nicholson refining his style so long
unobserved during the 60s. Mike Nichols gave him a
chance to play a role that resonated his own life: the
compulsive misogynistic stud Jonathon in "Carnal
Knowledge" (1971). Though the part allowed the actor to
display considerable range, Nichols may have erred in
not exploring the roots of his lead character's
behavior. Rafelson's "The King of Marvin Gardens"
presented him as a shy intellectual who escapes his
staid reserve via the expansive fantasy of his
late-night radio show but fails to discourage his
rambunctious con man brother (Bruce Dern) from his
outlandish financial schemes. Hal Ashby's "The Last
Detail" cast him as the Shore Patrol wise-ass Buddusky,
given to quoting Camus and Nietzsche, who sets the
leisurely pace for escorting (along with Otis Smith)
Randy Quaid to a Navy prison. The essence of the Robert
Towne adaptation of Darryl Ponicsan's novel was the
exchange of compassion between the guards and prisoner,
and Nicholson's outstanding performance earned him
another nomination for the Best Actor Oscar, inching him
a step closer to possessing a statue of his own. |
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In addition to acting Nicholson has worked as a director
three times, first on "Drive, He Said" (1971), which he
also co-wrote, a flawed personal study of alienated
youth within the rigid environment of an
athlete-oriented college. A commercial failure (though a
sensation at Cannes), it starred Bruce Dern as a gung-ho
basketball coach and has survived better than many
period pieces of the time (i.e., "The Strawberry
Statement"). Nicholson the director let Nicholson the
actor totally off the leash in "Goin' South" (1978), yet
his unchecked mayhem did not totally destroy this
amusing off-beat Western, most notable for the film
debuts of John Belushi and Mary Steenburgen. Finally, he
brought in the troubled "The Two Jakes" on time and
under budget, but no amount of tweaking by screenwriter
Towne could have resolved the muddle of a script that
was confusing even to audiences familiar with
"Chinatown". In a town where friendships are fleeting,
Nicholson has a reputation for fierce loyalty,
particularly to the people he knew before he was a
household name, but the complications that delayed "The
Two Jakes" for five years may have done irreparable
damage to his relationship with Towne, the film's
original director whom Nicholson replaced.
As a writer, Nicholson has received and/or shared
screenplay credit on various films, including the
low-budget "Thunder Island" and "Ride in the Whirlwind"
and "Flight to Fury." He also was a writer on the
psychedelic '60s film "The Trip" and the Monkees'
offbeat screen outing "Head." Among more serious fare,
he adapted Jeremy Larner's book "Drive, He Said" and
shared screenplay credit with Adam Sandler, Tim Hurlihy
and David Dorfman for "Anger Managment."
Jack Nicholson is a superstar in every sense of the
word, and because of that it is almost impossible to
separate him from his roles. He is bigger than the parts
he plays. People don't pay to see him submerged in a
character, they pay to see "The Act", Jack the bad boy,
the legendary testosterone-laden imp who chafes at
restraint. The warm matriarchal society that nurtured
him made him a lover of women, but for years he has
refused to abide by the rules and settle comfortably
into conventional monogamy. Will time mellow the
perpetual adolescent? He could choose the way of Warren
Beatty, who finally settled down. Or he could remain the
lone wolf, howling at the moon, championing his
virility. Nicholson may the penultimate modern example
of a performer who is both a consummate actor and a
quintessential movie star, one who seamlessly combines
the appeal of both, luring audiences in to watch him be
other people, yet also to be himself (or at least, the
on-screen version of himself).
Visit Jack Nicholson.org
for the number 1 Nicholson fan site.
Over 1500 photos, more
than 100 articles and interviews
and all the latest on Jack Nicholson!
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