Jack Nicholson
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John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is a highly successful, iconic American method actor known for his often dark-themed portrayals of neurotic characters.
He has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times (winning 3 of them), more than any other male actor, and second only to Meryl Streep (who has 13 nominations and 2 wins) in total nominations. He is tied with Walter Brennan for most wins by a male actor, and second to Katharine Hepburn for most acting wins overall (Hepburn had 4).
He has also won seven Golden Globe Awards and he received a Kennedy Center Honors in 2001.
Nicholson was born at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City to June Frances Nicholson (alias June Nilson), a showgirl of English and Irish descent who had previously married an Italian-American showman Donald Furcillo (stage name Donald Rose) six months earlier in Elkton, Maryland, on October 16, 1936. Elkton was a town known for its "quickie" marriages. However, Furcillo was already married, and, although he offered to take care of the child, June's mother Ethel insisted that she bring up the baby, partly so that June could pursue her dancing career.
-->Jack was brought up believing his grandparents Joseph (a department store window dresser in Asbury Park, New Jersey) and Ethel May Nicholson (a hairdresser and beautician and amateur artist in Neptune, New Jersey) were his parents. He attended high school at nearby Manasquan High School, where a drama award was ultimately named in his honor. Nicholson only discovered that his parents were actually his grandparents and his sister was in fact his mother in 1974 after being informed by a Time Magazine journalist who was doing a feature on him, while he was filming The Fortune with Stockard Channing. By this time both his mother and grandmother had died (in 1963 and 1970, respectively). Nicholson has stated he does not know who his father is, saying "Only Ethel and June knew and they never told anybody". Although Donald Furcillo claimed to be Nicholson's father and to have committed bigamy by marrying June, biographer Patrick McGilligan, who wrote Jack's Life (published in December 1995) asserted that Eddie King, June's manager, may be the father and other (see [link]) sources have suggested that June Nicholson was unsure of who the father was. Jack Nicholson has chosen not to have a DNA test or to pursue the matter. Although Nicholson is personally anti-abortion, he is pro-life: "I'm very contra my constituency in terms of abortion because I'm positively against it. I don't have the right to any other view. My only emotion is gratitude, literally, for my life." Nicholson told Vanity Fair in 1992 that he did not believe in God.[link]
In his adult personal life, Nicholson has been notorious for his inability to "settle down". He has four children by three different mothers despite only being married once (Jennifer Nicholson with former wife Sandra Knight, Caleb Goddard with Susan Anspach, his Five Easy Pieces co-star, and Lorraine and Raymond Nicholson with Rebecca Broussard). He has been romantically linked to numerous actresses and models for decades. Nicholson's longest relationship was for 17 years to actress Anjelica Huston, the daughter of the legendary director John Huston. However, the relationship ended when the news reported that Rebecca Broussard had become pregnant with his child.
Acting career
Nicholson started his career as an actor, writer, and producer, working for and with Roger Corman. This included his screen debut in The Cry Baby Killer (1958), where he played a juvenile delinquent who panics after shooting two other teenagers, The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), in which he had a small role as a masochistic dental patient, another small role in The Raven (1963) and The Terror (1963), co-starring then-wife Sandra Knight.
His work on the LSD-fueled screenplay for 1967's The Trip, which starred Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, led to his first big break in Easy Rider (1969). Nicholson played hard-drinking lawyer George Hanson, for which he received his first Oscar nomination.
A Best Actor nomination came the following year for his persona-defining role in Five Easy Pieces (1970), which includes his famous chicken salad dialogue about getting what you want. Also that year, he appeared in the movie adaptation of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever as Daisy Gamble (Barbra Streisand)'s stepbrother.
More of his earlier film roles include Hal Ashby's The Last Detail (1973), Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974), and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980).
Nicholson earned his first Academy Award for Best Actor for portraying Randall P. McMurphy in Miloš Forman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975). His Academy Award for Best Actor was matched with the Academy Award for Best Actress given to Louise Fletcher for her portrayal of Nurse Ratched. His next Oscar, the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, came for his role in Terms of Endearment (1983).
The 1989 Batman movie, where Nicholson played The Joker, was an international smash hit, and a lucrative percentage deal earned Nicholson about $50 million.
For his role as hotheaded Col. Nathan R. Jessep in A Few Good Men (1992), a movie about a murder in a US Marine Corps unit, he received yet another nomination by the Academy. This film contains Nicholson's "You can't handle the truth!" scene, which has since become widely known and imitated.
Nicholson would go on to win his next Best Actor Oscar for his role as Melvin Udall, the neurotic author, in the romance As Good as It Gets (1997). Nicholson's Oscar was matched with the Academy Award for Best Actress honor for Helen Hunt as a Manhattan waitress drawn into a love/hate friendship with Udall, a frequent diner.
In About Schmidt (2002), Nicholson portrayed a retired Omaha, Nebraska insurance man who questions his own life and the death of his wife shortly afterward. The deeply emotional, slow film stands in sharp contrast to many of his previous roles.
In the comedy Anger Management, he plays an aggressive therapist assigned to help overly pacifist Adam Sandler.
His most recent film is the 2003 Something's Gotta Give as an aging playboy who falls for the mother (Diane Keaton) of his young girlfriend.
Not all of Nicholson's performances have been well-received. He was nominated for Razzie Awards as worst actor for Man Trouble (1992) and Hoffa (1992). His portrayal of the American President in Mars Attacks (1996) was widely criticised for being over-the-top and unfunny.
Nicholson will return to villainous form as a tough Boston Irish Mob boss presiding over Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese's The Departed (2006).
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Trivia
- Nicholson is also a well-known and highly visible fan of the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers; he has courtside seats. It is in his contract that he does not film movies during Lakers games. When he is at a televised Lakers game, he is invariably sought out for celebrity camera shots during one or more breaks in the game. While he used to be often accompanied by a girlfriend, he can usually be seen with one of his young children now.
- In 1998, after Nicholson visited Cuba and had a three hour conversation with Fidel Castro, he told Daily Variety: "He is a genius". According to former Cuban intelligence officer Delfin Fernandez, Nicholson's hotel room was bugged with both video and audio recording devices at the instruction of Castro.
- He was asked, along with Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman to play Al Pacino's famed role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather.
- He is known to his friends as Pickles.
- He was friends with famous Gonzo Journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who has a humorous account of himself pranking Jack Nicholson at his home by placing a thawing elk's heart on his doorstep, playing sounds of a recorded pig slaughter, and firing guns in the air, in his last book before he died: Kingdom of Fear.
- Nicholson's height is 174 cm (5 ft 8.5 in).
- Nicholson had a role in the Monkees' history, co-writing the screenplay for their movie Head (1968) with producer Bob Rafelson (storylines coming from a weekend of brainstorming with the band, Rafelson and partner Bert Schneider), and assembling its soundtrack album. He also makes a cameo appearance in Head, as a production assistant. Rafelson, Schneider, and Nicholson would next work together on Easy Rider.
- When Oona O'Neill Chaplin saw Nicholson in the film Reds, where he portrayed her estranged father Eugene O'Neill, she wrote him a letter saying "Thanks to you, I now can love my father". Nicholson has said that "that is the best compliment I ever got".
- According to movie producer Robert Evans in the E! True Hollywood Story on Nicholson, Evans was looking to get Chinatown off the ground and they were in need of a male actor. Evans was intent on finding an unknown who could play the role when Nicholson stepped into an office to deliver a package. When Nicholson departed the office with his devilish grin, it caught Evans' eye who went right after Nicholson and told him about Chinatown with an offer of US$10,000 to star in the film. Nicholson told Evans that he was paying alimony along with a child to support, if the producer could raise it to US$15,000. Evans offered him US$12,500, and Nicholson hugged Evans right on the spot.
- He lived by friend Danny DeVito in the same New Jersey neighborhood during their early years. When the two were working on One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Nicholson immediately identified DeVito as a fellow resident from Asbury Park, New Jersey, their hometown and became close friends. The basis for DeVito's decision to play the Penguin in Batman Returns was partly influenced by Nicholson's advice. Nicholson's participation in Batman (1989) was one of Hollywood's most lucrative roles – his share of the film's profits netted him somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 US dollars.
- The late Batman creator Bob Kane had recommended Nicholson for the Joker for years prior to his being cast as the Joker for the 1989 film.
- The sardonic sailor character Shipwreck from GI Joe: A Real American Hero animated series of the 1980s was partly based on Nicholson (and partly based on Popeye the Sailor Man).
- Whenever he's asked what he'll do when he retires from acting. He answers "Well hopefully, go to heaven".
- Makes it a must never to do Disney movies, especially animated movies, as he knows the story, the songs and dialogue will always outshadow any actor's performance.
- Is a fan of professional wrestling. Some of his favorites include Harley Race, Ric Flair and John Cena
Filmography
| Year | Film | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 2006 | The Departed | Frank Costello (post production) |
| 2003 | Something's Gotta Give | Harry Sanborn |
| 2003 | Anger Management | Dr. Buddy Rydell |
| 2002 | About Schmidt | Warren R. Schmidt |
| 2001 | The Pledge | Jerry Black |
| 1997 | As Good as It Gets | Melvin Udall |
| 1996 | Mars Attacks! | President James Dale Art Land |
| 1996 | The Evening Star | Garrett Breedlove |
| 1996 | Blood and Wine | Alex Gates |
| 1995 | The Crossing Guard | Freddy Gale |
| 1994 | Wolf | Will Randall |
| 1992 | Hoffa | James R. 'Jimmy' Hoffa |
| 1992 | A Few Good Men | Col. Nathan R. Jessep |
| 1992 | Man Trouble | Eugene Earl Axline aka Harry Bliss |
| 1990 | The Two Jakes | Jake Gittes (director) |
| 1989 | Batman | The Joker/ Jack Napier |
| 1987 | Ironweed | Francis Phelan |
| 1987 | Broadcast News | Bill Rorich |
| 1987 | The Witches of Eastwick | Daryl Van Horne |
| 1986 | Heartburn | Mark Louis Forman |
| 1986 | Elephant's Child | Narrator |
| 1985 | Prizzi's Honor | Charley Partanna |
| 1983 | Terms of Endearment | Garrett Breedlove |
| 1982 | The Border | Charlie Smith |
| 1981 | Reds | Eugene O'Neill |
| 1981 | The Postman Always Rings Twice | Frank Chambers |
| 1980 | The Shining | Jack Torrance |
| 1978 | Goin' South | Henry Lloyd Moon (director) |
| 1976 | The Last Tycoon | Brimmer |
| 1976 | The Missouri Breaks | Tom Logan |
| 1975 | One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest | Randle Patrick McMurphy |
| 1975 | The Fortune | Oscar Sullivan |
| 1975 | Tommy | The Specialist |
| 1975 | aka The Passenger | David Locke |
| 1974 | Chinatown | Jake 'J.J' Gittes |
| 1973 | The Last Detail | Billy 'Bad Ass' Buddusky |
| 1972 | The King of Marvin Gardens | David Staebler |
| 1971 | A Safe Place | Mitch |
| 1971 | Carnal Knowledge | Jonathan Fuerst |
| 1970 | Five Easy Pieces | Robert Eroica Dupea |
| 1970 | On a Clear Day You Can See Forever | Tad Pringle |
| 1970 | The Rebel Rousers | Bunny |
| 1969 | Easy Rider | George Hanson |
| 1968 | Psych-Out | Stoney (co-director, producer) |
| 1968 | Head | "Production Assistant" (cameo) (also screenplay and soundtrack) |
| 1967 | Hells Angels on Wheels | Poet |
| 1967 | The St. Valentine's Day Massacre | Gino, Hitman (uncredited) |
| 1967 | The Shooting | Billy Spear |
| 1967 | The Trip | (screenplay) |
| 1965 | Ride in the Whirlwind | Wes |
| 1964 | Back Door to Hell | Burnett |
| 1964 | Flight to Fury | Jay Wickham |
| 1964 | Ensign Pulver | Dolan |
| 1963 | The Terror | Lt. Andre Duvalier |
| 1963 | The Raven | Rexford Bedlo |
| 1962 | The Broken Land | Will Brocius |
| 1960 | Studs Lonigan | Weary Reilly |
| 1960 | The Little Shop of Horrors | Wilbur Force |
| 1960 | Too Soon to Love | Buddy |
| 1960 | The Wild Ride | Johnny Varron |
| 1958 | The Cry Baby Killer | Jimmy Wallace |
Academy Awards and nominations
- 1969 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Easy Rider
- 1970 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Leading Role - Five Easy Pieces
- 1973 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Leading Role - The Last Detail
- 1974 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Leading Role - Chinatown
- 1975 - Won - Best Actor in a Leading Role - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
- 1981 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Reds
- 1983 - Won - Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Terms of Endearment
- 1985 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Leading Role - Prizzi's Honor
- 1987 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Leading Role - Ironweed
- 1992 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Supporting Role - A Few Good Men
- 1997 - Won - Best Actor in a Leading Role - As Good As It Gets
- 2002 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Leading Role - About Schmidt
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External links
- [Extensive biography at Tiscali UK]
- [Ancestry of Jack Nicholson]
- [Unofficial fansite for Jack Nicholson]
- [Jack Nicholson prank calls]
- [Jack Nicholson Online - Latest news and info]
- [Marriage certificate of Jack's mother]
- [Photos of Jack's mother and possible father]
- [Jack Nicholson Pictures]
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