Everything about Jack Nicholson totally explained
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson (born
April 22 1937) is an
American actor, internationally renowned for his often dark-themed portrayals of
neurotic characters.
Nicholson is a very renowned and established actor, having been nominated for an
Academy Award a record-breaking 12 times and having won three times (twice for Best Actor and once as Best Supporting Actor). He is tied with
Walter Brennan for most acting wins by a male actor (three), and second to
Katharine Hepburn for most acting wins overall (four). He is also one of only three actors nominated for an Academy Award for acting (either lead or supporting) in every decade since the 1960s; the other two are
Michael Caine and
Paul Newman. He has won seven
Golden Globe Awards, and received a
Kennedy Center Honor in 2001. In 1994, he became one of the youngest actors to be awarded the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award. His notable films in which he starred on include
Easy Rider,
Five Easy Pieces,
Chinatown,
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,
The Shining,
Terms of Endearment,
Batman,
A Few Good Men,
As Good as It Gets and
The Departed.
Biography
Early life
Nicholson was born in
Manhattan, New York City, the son of a showgirl, June Frances Nicholson (stage name
June Nilson). June had married
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. Furcillo however, 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. 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
Latvian-born Eddie King (originally Edgar A. Kirschfeld), June's manager, may be the father and other sources have suggested that June Nicholson was unsure of who the father was. Nicholson has chosen not to have a DNA test or to pursue the matter. Nicholson's mother was of
Irish and
Dutch descent
Nicholson was brought up believing that his grandparents, John Joseph Nicholson (a department store
window dresser in
Asbury Park, New Jersey) and Ethel May Rhoads (a hairdresser, beautician and amateur artist in Neptune, New Jersey), were his parents. 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.By this time, both his mother and grandmother had died (in 1963 and 1970, respectively). Nicholson has stated he doesn't know who his father is, saying "Only Ethel and June knew and they never told anybody." Nick, as he was known to his high school friends, attended nearby
Manasquan High School where he was voted "class clown" by the Class of 1954. A theatre and a drama award at the school are named in his honor. In 2004, Nicholson attended his 50 year
high school reunion accompanied by his aunt Lorraine.
Nicholson started his career as an actor, writer, and producer, working for and with
Roger Corman, among others. 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'd a small role as a masochistic dental patient, and roles in two other Roger Corman films
The Raven (1963) and
The Terror (his first directing role for one day) (1963), co-starring then-wife Sandra Knight.
As the 60s progressed, and with acting jobs still not easy to find, Nicholson began writing more often. The result of this included
Thunder Island (1963),
Flight to Fury (1964),
Ride in the Whirlwind (1965), and
The Monkees' vehicle
Head (1968, co-written with director
Bob Rafelson). These films enjoyed little if any success, but the young Nicholson was finally working more steadily. In the TV sitcom world, he also made appearances in two episodes of
The Andy Griffith Show as Marvin Jenkins in 1966-1967.
Rise to fame
With his acting career heading nowhere, Nicholson seemed resigned to a career behind the camera as a writer/director. His first real taste of writing success was the
LSD-fueled screenplay for 1967's
The Trip, which starred
Peter Fonda and
Dennis Hopper. However, after a spot opened up in Fonda and Hopper's
Easy Rider, it led to his first big acting break. Nicholson played hard-drinking
lawyer George Hanson, for which he received his first Oscar nomination. The part of Hanson was a lucky break for Nicholson -- the role had in fact been written for actor
Rip Torn, who was a close friend of screen writer
Terry Southern, but Torn withdrew from the project after a bitter argument with the film's director
Dennis Hopper, during which the two men almost came to blows.
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, although most of his performance was left on the
cutting room floor.
Other early, notable Nicholson roles included
Hal Ashby's
The Last Detail (1973), for which he was awarded
Best Actor at the
Cannes Film Festival, and the classic
Roman Polanski noir thriller,
Chinatown (1974) (he was
Oscar-nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role for both films). He also starred in
The Who's
Tommy (1975), directed by
Ken Russell, and
Michelangelo Antonioni's
The Passenger (1975).
An American icon
Nicholson earned his first
Best Actor Oscar for portraying
Randle P. McMurphy in the movie adaptation of
Ken Kesey's novel
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, directed by
Miloš Forman in 1975. His Oscar was matched when
Louise Fletcher received the
Best Actress Award for her portrayal of
Nurse Ratched.
After this, he began to take more unusual roles. He took a small role in
The Last Tycoon, opposite
Robert De Niro. He took a less sympathetic role in
Arthur Penn's western
The Missouri Breaks, specifically to work with
Marlon Brando. He followed this by making his second directorial effort with the western comedy
Goin' South. His first movie as a director was a 1971 quirky release called
Drive, He Said.
Although he didn't garner any
Academy Award attention for
Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of
Stephen King's
The Shining (1980), it remains one of Nicholson's most significant roles. His next Oscar, the
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, came for his role of retired astronaut Garrett Breedlove in
Terms of Endearment (1983), directed by
James L. Brooks. Nicholson continued to work prolifically in the 80s, starring in such films as
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981),
Reds (1981),
Prizzi's Honor (1985),
The Witches of Eastwick (1987), and
Ironweed (1987). Three Oscar nominations also followed (
Reds,
Prizzi's Honor, and
Ironweed).
Nicholson turned down the role of John Book in
Witness. The 1989
Batman movie, wherein Nicholson played
The Joker, was an international smash hit, and a lucrative percentage deal earned Nicholson about $60 million. Nicholson was to reprise his role as The Joker in the fifth installment in the franchise
Batman Triumphant in 1999, but Warner Bros. Pictures canceled the project.
For his role as hot-headed Col. Nathan R. Jessep in
A Few Good Men (1992), a movie about a murder in a
U.S. Marine Corps unit, Nicholson received yet another Academy nomination. This film contained the court scene in which Nicholson famously explodes, "You can't handle the truth!", in one of the
Aaron Sorkin-penned
soliloquies to become part of popular culture.
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). However, Nicholson's performance in
Hoffa also earned a
Golden Globe nomination.
Nicholson would go on to win his next
Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Melvin Udall, a neurotic author with
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), in the romance
As Good as It Gets (1997), again directed by James L. Brooks. Nicholson's Oscar was matched with the
Academy Award for Best Actress for
Helen Hunt as a Manhattan waitress drawn into a love/hate friendship with Udall, a frequent diner in the restaurant in which she worked.
In 2001, Nicholson was the first actor to receive the
Stanislavsky Award at the
Moscow International Film Festival for "conquering the heights of acting and faithfulness".
Recent years
In
About Schmidt (2002), Nicholson portrayed a retired
Omaha, Nebraska actuary who questions his own life and the death of his wife shortly afterward. His quiet, restrained performance stood in sharp contrast to many of his previous roles, and earned him an Academy Award Nomination for Best Actor. In the comedy
Anger Management, he plays an aggressive therapist assigned to help overly pacifist
Adam Sandler. In 2003, Nicholson starred in
Something's Gotta Give, as an aging playboy who falls for the mother (
Diane Keaton) of his young girlfriend. In late 2006, Nicholson marked his return to the "dark side" as Frank Costello, a sadistic
Boston Irish Mob boss presiding over
Matt Damon and
Leonardo DiCaprio in
Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning
The Departed, a remake of
Andrew Lau's
Infernal Affairs.
In November 2006, Nicholson began filming his next project,
Rob Reiner's
The Bucket List, a role for which he shaved his head. The film starred him and
Morgan Freeman as dying men who fulfill their list of goals. The film was released on
December 25,
2007 (limited) and
January 11,
2008 (wide). In researching the role, Nicholson visited a
Los Angeles hospital to see how cancer patients coped with their illnesses.
As of March 2008, it has been rumoured that
Paul Thomas Anderson has been keen to write and direct
Robert Evans'
Power Play with Nicholson in the lead role.
Personal life
In his adult personal life, Nicholson has been notorious for his inability to "settle down", with a place on
Maxim's "Top 10 Living Legends of Sex." He has allegedly had sex with 2,000 women. He has five children by four different women; he was married once.
During a road rage incident in 1994, he allegedly smashed another driver's car window with a golf club. His ardent refusal to miss a Lakers home game means that studios must schedule filming around the Lakers home schedule. In an interview on
Rick Dees'
radio program, Nicholson said, "Mrs. Clinton has been involved in issues, everything from
health care, which we know and prison reform and helping the military, speaking for women and speaking for Americans."
Academy Awards history
Nicholson has been nominated for an acting (lead or supporting)
Academy Award in five different decades: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. The only other actors who can say the same are
Michael Caine and
Paul Newman. With 12 nominations thus far (8 for Best Actor and 4 for Best Supporting Actor), Jack Nicholson is the most nominated male actor in Academy Awards history. With three Oscar wins, he also ties with
Walter Brennan for the 2nd highest number of Oscar wins in acting categories (all of Brennan's wins were for Best Supporting Actor).
At the
79th Academy Awards, Nicholson had fully shaved his hair for his role in
The Bucket List. Those ceremonies represented the seventh time he's presented the
Academy Award for Best Picture (
1972,
1977,
1978,
1990,
1993,
2006, and 2007).
Every time he's won an Oscar, the lead actress of that same film has also won an Oscar. After he won an award for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at the award show he said," Man that Nurse Ratched is a bitch!"
Filmography
Further Information
Get more info on 'Jack Nicholson'.
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