John Joseph Nicholson was born on April 22,1937 and is an American retired actor and filmmaker.
97 Facts About Jack Nicholson
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Jack Nicholson is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time.
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Jack Nicholson received numerous accolades throughout his career which spanned over five decades, including three Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, a Grammy Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
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Jack Nicholson received the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award in 1994 and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2001.
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Jack Nicholson has won three Academy Awards, for Best Actor for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and As Good as It Gets and for Best Supporting Actor for Terms of Endearment.
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Jack Nicholson was Oscar-nominated for Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Detail, Chinatown, Reds, Prizzi's Honor, Ironweed, A Few Good Men and About Schmidt.
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Jack Nicholson has directed three films, Drive, He Said, Goin' South, and The Two Jakes.
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Jack Nicholson is one of only three male actors to win three Academy Awards, and one of only two actors to be nominated for an Academy Award for acting in films made in every decade from the 1960s to the 2000s.
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John Joseph Jack Nicholson was born on April 22,1937, in Neptune City, New Jersey, the son of a showgirl, June Frances Jack Nicholson.
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Jack Nicholson's mother was of Irish, English, German, and Welsh descent.
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Jack Nicholson was in detention every day for a whole school year.
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In 2004, Jack Nicholson attended his 50-year high school reunion accompanied by his aunt Lorraine.
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In 1957, Jack Nicholson joined the California Air National Guard, a move he sometimes characterized as an effort to "dodge the draft"; the Korean War era's Military Selective Service Act was still in force, and draftees were required to perform up to two years of active duty.
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Jack Nicholson first came to California in 1950, when he was 13, to visit his sister.
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Jack Nicholson took a job as an office worker for animation directors William Hanna and Joseph Barbera at the MGM cartoon studio.
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Jack Nicholson trained to be an actor with a group called the Players Ring Theater, after which he found small parts performing on the stage and in TV soap operas.
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Jack Nicholson made his film debut in a low-budget teen drama The Cry Baby Killer, playing the title role.
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Jack Nicholson appeared in two episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, and starred as a rebellious dirt-track race driver in the 1960 film The Wild Ride.
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Jack Nicholson co-wrote, with Bob Rafelson, the movie Head, which starred The Monkees, and arranged the movie's soundtrack.
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Jack Nicholson played alcoholic lawyer George Hanson, for which he received his first Oscar nomination.
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In 1970, Jack Nicholson starred in Five Easy Pieces alongside Karen Black in what became his persona-defining role.
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Jack Nicholson played Bobby Dupea, an oil rig worker, and Black played his waitress girlfriend.
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Jack Nicholson said that the now-infamous restaurant scene was partly improvised by Nicholson, and was out of character for Bobby, who wouldn't have cared enough to argue with a waitress.
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Jack Nicholson didn't understand that, but what it was was that I really loved him a lot, and I didn't know it until I saw him again, because it all welled up.
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Also in 1970, Jack Nicholson appeared in the film adaptation of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, although most of his performance was left on the cutting room floor.
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Jack Nicholson's agent turned down a starring role in Deliverance when the film's producer and director, John Boorman, refused to pay what Nicholson's agent wanted.
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In 1971, Jack Nicholson starred in Carnal Knowledge, a comedy-drama directed by Mike Nichols and co-starring Art Garfunkel, Ann-Margret, and Candice Bergen.
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Jack Nicholson was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor.
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In 1974, Jack Nicholson starred in Roman Polanski's noir thriller Chinatown, and was again nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Jake Gittes, a private detective.
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Ebert called Jack Nicholson's portrayal sharp-edged, menacing, and aggressive, a character who knew "how to go over the top", as he did in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
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Ebert notes the importance of the role for Jack Nicholson's career, seeing it as a major transition from the exploitation films of the previous decade.
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From Gittes forward, Jack Nicholson created the persona of a man who had seen it all and was still capable of being wickedly amused.
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Jack Nicholson had been friends with Polanski long before the murder of Polanski's wife, Sharon Tate, by the Manson Family, and supported him in the days following her death.
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At the time, Jack Nicholson was out of town making a film, but his steady girlfriend, actress Anjelica Huston, had dropped by unannounced to pick up some items.
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Jack Nicholson plays an anti-authoritarian patient at a mental hospital where he becomes an inspiring leader for the other patients.
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Jack Nicholson learned afterward that DeVito grew up in the same area of New Jersey, and they knew many of the same people.
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Forman allowed Jack Nicholson to improvise throughout the film, including most of the group therapy sequences.
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Jack Nicholson is everywhere; his energy propels the ward of loonies and makes of them an ensemble, a chorus of people caught in a bummer with nowhere else to go, but still fighting for some frail sense of themselves.
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Also in 1975, Jack Nicholson starred in Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger, which co-starred Maria Schneider.
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Jack Nicholson plays a journalist, David Locke, who during an assignment in North Africa decides to quit journalism and disappear by taking on a new hidden identity.
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Jack Nicholson said he wanted the film to have more of a "spy feeling [and] be more political".
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Jack Nicholson began shooting the film from an unfinished script, notes Judith Crist, yet upon its completion he thought so highly of the film that he bought the world rights and recorded a reminiscence of working with Antonioni.
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Jack Nicholson took a small role in The Last Tycoon opposite Robert De Niro.
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Jack Nicholson took a less sympathetic role in Arthur Penn's western The Missouri Breaks, specifically to work with Marlon Brando.
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Jack Nicholson was especially inspired by Brando's acting ability, recalling that in his youth, as an assistant manager at a theater, he watched On the Waterfront about 40 times.
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Jack Nicholson has observed that while both De Niro and Brando were noted for their skill as method actors, he himself has seldom been described as one, a fact he sees as an accomplishment: "I'm still fooling them", he told Sean Penn.
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Jack Nicholson's work is always interesting, clearly conceived, and has the X-factor, magic.
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Jack Nicholson is an intelligent and literate man, and these are almost impossible to act.
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Jack Nicholson was Kubrick's first choice to play the role, although the book's author, Stephen King, wanted more of an "everyman".
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Kubrick won the argument and called Jack Nicholson's acting "on a par with the greatest stars of the past, like Spencer Tracy and Jimmy Cagney".
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In preparation for the role, Jack Nicholson drew upon his own experiences as a writer and slept short hours to help remain in an agitated state during the shoot.
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Jack Nicholson shot a scene with the ghostly bartender 36 times.
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Jack Nicholson can come on the set and deliver, without any fuss, without taking a long time walking around getting into it.
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Jack Nicholson continued to work prolifically in the 1980s, starring in such films as: The Postman Always Rings Twice ; Reds, where Jack Nicholson portrays the writer Eugene O'Neill with a quiet intensity; Prizzi's Honor ; Heartburn ; The Witches of Eastwick ; Broadcast News ; and Ironweed.
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Jack Nicholson impressed me in one scene after another; the movie is composed largely of first takes with him.
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Jack Nicholson said that he was "particularly proud" of his performance as the Joker: "I considered it a piece of pop art", he said.
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Nathan R Jessup in A Few Good Men, a movie about a murder in a US Marine Corps unit, Nicholson received yet another Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
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Critic David Thomson notes that Jack Nicholson's character "blazed and roared".
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Jack Nicholson was nominated for Razzie Awards as worst actor for Man Trouble and Hoffa.
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Jack Nicholson played Melvin Udall, a "wickedly funny", mean-spirited novelist with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
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The film was a box-office success, grossing $314 million, making it Jack Nicholson's second-best-grossing film, after Batman.
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Jack Nicholson admits he initially disliked playing a middle-aged man alongside a much younger Hunt, seeing it as a movie cliche.
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In 2001, Jack Nicholson was the first actor to receive the Stanislavsky Award at the 23rd Moscow International Film Festival for "conquering the heights of acting and faithfulness".
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In 2001, Jack Nicholson starred in The Pledge, a mystery drama where he portrays retired police detective Jerry Black, who vows to find a murderer of a young girl.
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Jack Nicholson was praised for his performance; Bob Graham of the San Francisco Chronicle called it "deeply felt" compared to some of Jack Nicholson's other films.
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Jack Nicholson's quietly restrained performance earned him an Academy Award Nomination for Best Actor.
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In 2003, Jack Nicholson starred in Something's Gotta Give as an aging playboy who falls for the mother of his young girlfriend.
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In late 2006, Jack Nicholson marked his return to the dark side as Frank Costello, a nefarious Boston Irish Mob boss, based on Whitey Bulger, who was still on the run at the time, in Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning film The Departed, a remake of Andrew Lau's Infernal Affairs.
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In 2007, Jack Nicholson co-starred with Morgan Freeman in Rob Reiner's The Bucket List.
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In researching the role, Jack Nicholson visited a Los Angeles hospital to see how cancer patients coped with their illnesses.
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Jack Nicholson is the Hollywood celebrity who is almost like a character in some ongoing novel of our times.
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On February 15,2015, Jack Nicholson made a special appearance as a presenter on SNL 40, the 40th anniversary special of Saturday Night Live.
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Jack Nicholson was reported to be starring in an English-language remake of Toni Erdmann in 2017 opposite Kristen Wiig, his first feature film role since How Do You Know, but the project was later abandoned by everyone, including the director.
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Flanagan disclosed that Jack Nicholson had previously been approached to appear in the 2018 film Ready Player One but declined.
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Jack Nicholson's marriage was to The Terror co-star Sandra Knight from 1962 to 1968, though they separated in 1966.
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In 1984, Jack Nicholson said he was not convinced of this, but in 1996, Caleb said that Jack Nicholson had recognized him as his son in private.
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In 1971 and 1972, Jack Nicholson was in a relationship with singer Michelle Phillips, the ex-wife of his best friend Dennis Hopper, during which time she suffered a miscarriage.
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Jack Nicholson has lamented that he "didn't see enough of my eldest daughter because I was trying to make a career".
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Charges were dropped after Jack Nicholson apologized to Blank, and the two reached an undisclosed settlement, which included a reported $500,000 check from Jack Nicholson.
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Jack Nicholson lived next door to Marlon Brando for a number of years on Mulholland Drive in Beverly Hills.
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Jack Nicholson said he did so out of respect for Brando's legacy, as it had become too expensive to renovate the "derelict" building, which was plagued by mold.
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Jack Nicholson was a close friend of Robert Evans, the producer of Chinatown, and after Evans lost Woodland, his home, as the result of a 1980s drug bust, Jack Nicholson and other friends of Evans bought Woodland to give it back to him.
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Jack Nicholson is friends with fellow New Jerseyans Danny DeVito and Joe Pesci.
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Jack Nicholson is a fan of the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Lakers.
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Jack Nicholson became a Lakers season ticket holder in 1970, and held courtside seats next to the opponent's benches both at The Forum and Staples Center.
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Jack Nicholson was described as a "fixture" at the games, though his regular attendance had stopped by 2021, as he withdrew from public appearances.
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Jack Nicholson occasionally argued with game officials and opposing players, and even walked onto the court.
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Jack Nicholson was almost ejected from a Lakers playoff game in May 2003 after yelling at a referee.
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Jack Nicholson attended a 2023 playoff game, which media outlets noted was his first appearance at a Lakers game in nearly two years.
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In 1995, artist Ed Ruscha said that Jack Nicholson has "one of the best collections out here".
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Jack Nicholson has called himself a "lifelong Irish Democrat", although he has said he supports every president.
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Jack Nicholson supported George McGovern in the 1972 presidential election, Michael Dukakis in 1988, Hillary Clinton in 2008, and Bernie Sanders in 2020.
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In 2013, Jack Nicholson co-presented the Academy Award for Best Picture with First Lady Michelle Obama.
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Jack Nicholson is an active and voting member of the Academy.
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In May 2008, then-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver announced that Jack Nicholson would be inducted into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.
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In 2010, Jack Nicholson was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
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In 2011, Jack Nicholson received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Brown University at its 243rd commencement.