Jack Nicholson

• 1. The Secret Birth In Neptune City

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  John Joseph Nicholson entered the world on the 22nd of April 1937 in Neptune City, New Jersey. His mother June Frances Nicholson was a showgirl who performed under the stage name June Nilson. The family structure surrounding his childhood remained a tightly guarded secret for decades. June married an Italian-American showman named Donald Furcillo in 1936 before realizing he was already married to someone else. Biographer Patrick McGilligan later suggested that Eddie King might have been Nicholson's biological father instead of Furcillo. June and her parents decided to raise Nicholson as their own child without revealing his true parentage. June acted as his sister while raising him alongside her actual daughter Lorraine.

  Time magazine researchers uncovered this deception in 1974 and informed Nicholson about the truth. He learned that his supposed sister June was actually his mother and that Lorraine was really his aunt. Both his mother and grandmother had died by that time, with June passing away in 1963 and his grandmother dying in 1970. Nicholson described the revelation as dramatic but not traumatizing since he felt psychologically formed by then. He grew up on what locals called The Shore, moving from Neptune City to Spring Lake before starting high school. He attended Manasquan High School where classmates voted him Class Clown in 1954.

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• 2. The Counter Culture Breakthrough

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  Nicholson first came to California at age thirteen to visit his sister in 1950. He worked as an office employee for animation directors William Hanna and Joseph Barbera at the MGM cartoon studio. They offered him an entry-level job as an animator which he declined because he wanted to become an actor instead. His film debut arrived in Roger Corman's low-budget teen drama The Cry Baby Killer released in 1958. For the next decade Nicholson frequently collaborated with producer Roger Corman on various projects.

  His big acting break came when a role opened up in Easy Rider directed by Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda in 1969. He played alcoholic lawyer George Hanson for which he received his first Academy Award nomination. The film cost only four hundred thousand dollars to make yet became a blockbuster grossing sixty million dollars. Biographer John Parker wrote that Nicholson's interpretation placed him among earlier antihero actors like James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart. Stanley Kubrick was impressed by his performance in Easy Rider and cast Nicholson as Napoleon in a planned biographical film. Production on that project commenced but eventually fizzled out due to ownership changes at MGM. This role made him an overnight number-one hero of the counter-culture movement.

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• 3. The Anti-Authoritarian Persona

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  In 1970 Nicholson starred alongside Karen Black in Five Easy Pieces which became his persona-defining role. He played Bobby Dupea, an oil rig worker while Black portrayed his waitress girlfriend. Black noted that Nicholson's character was very subdued compared to his real personality. She said the now-infamous restaurant scene was partly improvised by Nicholson and would not have been out of character for Bobby. Black later admitted she had a crush on Nicholson from their meeting though they dated only briefly.

  Nicholson won his first Academy Award for Best Actor playing Randle P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest released in 1975. The movie was directed by Miloš Forman and co-produced by Michael Douglas. Danny DeVito appeared in one of his earliest roles as another patient. The film received nine nominations at the Academy Awards and won five including Nicholson's first win for Best Actor. Forman allowed Nicholson to improvise throughout the film including most group therapy sequences. Reviewer Marie Brenner noted his performance transcended the screen and inspired other actors with comic dialogue about mental illness.

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• 4. The Dark Side Of Fame

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  Stanley Kubrick selected Nicholson as his first choice to play writer Jack Torrance in The Shining released in 1980. Stephen King wanted more of an everyman but Kubrick won the argument calling Nicholson's acting on par with Spencer Tracy and Jimmy Cagney. In preparation Nicholson drew upon his own experiences as a writer and slept short hours to remain agitated during the shoot. His co-star Shelley Duvall recalled spending many hours discussing characters while Nicholson maintained his character should be cold from the start. He improvised his now-famous Here's Johnny line along with scenes unleashing anger when his wife interrupted work.

  Nicholson shot a scene with the ghostly bartender thirty-six times due to Kubrick's perfectionism. He said Stanley was demanding and would do a scene fifty times requiring good performance. Later that year he starred in Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger playing journalist David Locke who quits journalism to disappear by taking a new hidden identity. The dead person whose identity he took turned out to be a weapons smuggler on the run. Antonioni's unusual plot included convincing dialogue and fine acting states film critic Seymour Chatman. It received good reviews and revived Antonioni's reputation as a great director.

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• 5. The Golden Age Of Acting

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  In 1997 Nicholson won his third Academy Award for Best Actor in As Good as It Gets playing Melvin Udall, a mean-spirited novelist with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Helen Hunt played a Manhattan single mother drawn into a love-hate friendship with him. The film grossed three hundred fourteen million dollars making it his second-best-grossing film after Batman. Critic Jack Mathews said Nicholson was in rare form adding that it made you aware how much fun the actor was having. Andrew Horton described their on-screen relationship as fire and ice oil and water seemingly complete opposites.

  Nicholson fathered six children by five women but married only once to Sandra Knight from 1962 until 1968. They separated in 1966 though they remained legally married until 1968. Five Easy Pieces co-star Susan Anspach contended her son Caleb born the 26th of September 1970 was actually Nicholson's biological son. In 1996 Caleb said Nicholson had recognized him as his son privately while publicly acknowledging him by 1998. Their longest relationship lasted from 1973 until 1990 with actress

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• 6. The Complex Personal History

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  Anjelica Huston.

  In February 1994 Robert Blank filed a criminal complaint stating Nicholson approached Blank's Mercedes-Benz stopped at a red light in North Hollywood. After accusing Blank of cutting him off Nicholson used a golf club to bash the roof and windshield. A witness confirmed Blank's account leading to misdemeanor charges of assault and vandalism filed against Nicholson. Charges were dropped after Nicholson apologized and the two reached an undisclosed settlement including a reported five hundred thousand dollar check from Nicholson. He also faced a lawsuit in 1996 alleging he promised Catherine Sheehan one thousand dollars for sex then assaulted her when she asked for money.

  Nicholson made his final film appearance in How Do You Know released in 2010 starring Paul Rudd and Reese Witherspoon. The film was both a financial and critical failure bringing his total filmography to eighty films. In a September 2013 Vanity Fair article Nicholson stated he did not consider himself retired but was now less driven to be out there anymore. He participated in telethons for Haiti after the earthquake that same year. In 2013 he co-presented the

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• 7. The Legacy Of The Shore

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  Academy Award for Best Picture with First Lady Michelle Obama marking his eighth time presenting the award.

  On the 15th of February 2015 Nicholson appeared as a presenter on SNL 40 the fortieth anniversary special of Saturday Night Live. After Muhammad Ali died the 3rd of June 2016 Nicholson appeared on HBO's The Fight Game discussing their friendship. He received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Brown University at its 243rd commencement in 2011. Ruth Simmons called him the most skilled actor of our lifetime during the ceremony. In 2018 the Australian fishing spider Ornodolomedes nicholsoni was named in his honor for brilliantly portraying diverse personalities.

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