|
|
| Birth Name(s) : John Joseph Nicholson |
Date of Birth: April 22, 1937 |
| Status:
N/A
|
Partner:
N/A |
| Profession:
Actor |
| << Add Jack Nicholson To Your Favorites |
|
Full Jack Nicholson Biography
| Abandoned by his father in his childhood, he was raised believing his grandmother was his mother and his mother was his older sister. The truth was revealed to him years later when a Time magazine researcher uncovered the truth while preparing a story on the star. Jack had a 17 year relationship with actress Anjelica Huston which ended in 1990 after Rebecca Broussard was carrying his child. |
|
|
Additional Jack Nicholson Biography
John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937), known as Jack Nicholson, is a three time Academy Award winning American actor internationally renowned for his often dark-themed portrayals of neurotic characters.
Nicholson was brought up believing his grandparents John J. 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 does not know who his father is, saying "Only Ethel and June knew and they never told anybody".
Nicholson was raised in his mother's Catholic religion. Nick, as he was known to his high school friends, attended high school at 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, much to the surprise and delight of his fellow classmates.
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 had 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.
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 co-director Dennis Hopper, during which the two men almost came to blows.
More of his earlier and notable film roles: Hal Ashby's The Last Detail (1973) 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).
Nicholson turned down the role of John Book in Witness. The 1989 Batman movie, where 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.Nicholson (right) and Dennis Hopper at the 62nd Academy Awards, March 26, 1990
For his role as hot-headed Colonel Nathan R. Jessep in A Few Good Men (1992), a movie about a murder in a US Marine Corps unit, he received yet another Academy nomination. This film contains Nicholson's "You can't handle the truth!" scene, which has since become widely known and imitated.
In the comedy Anger Management, he plays an aggressive therapist assigned to help overly pacifist Adam Sandler.
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 will star him and Morgan Freeman as dying men who must fulfill their list of goals. The film is scheduled to be 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.
He is also a close friend of film director Roman Polanski, whom he has supported through many personal crises including the death of his wife, Sharon Tate, at the hands of the Manson Family. He also supported Polanski through his conviction for statutory rape, a crime which took place on the Nicholson estate on Mulholland Drive.
Nicholson lived next door to Marlon Brando for a number of years on Mulholland Drive in Beverly Hills. Warren Beatty also lived nearby, earning the road the nickname "Bad Boy Drive". After Brando's death in 2004, Nicholson purchased his neighbor's bungalow for $6.1 million, with the purpose of having it demolished. Nicholson stated that it was done out of respect to Brando's legacy, as the house had become derelict.
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 has presented the Academy Award for Best Picture (1972, 1977, 1978, 1990, 1993, 2006, and 2007). |
|
| Add Jack Nicholson Biography (SuperUSERS) + |
Jack Nicholson Quote(s)
| My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch. |
|
| Add Jack Nicholson Review/Comment
|
HQ Jack Nicholson Pictures (16) | Random Jack Nicholson Picture
|
| << Back to the Jack Nicholson Homepage |
|
