American actor and recognized major star after a number of years of playing lesser roles. He is known for cynical, sadistic roles and for being smug and sexist to the core. Nicholson is also supremely talented, uncommonly insightful, and totally absorbing on-screen. He was worth more than $150 million by age 59 and was able, at that time, to choose projects according to his whim. With the charisma of star-personality, he has been nominated for the Oscar ten times and won as Best Actor for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” in 1975 and “As Good As It Gets” in 1998. He was also voted the Best Supporting Actor for “Terms of Endearment.” His films include “Easy Rider,” “Carnal Knowledge,” “Chinatown” and “A Few Good Men.”
Nicholson had a murky genealogy; the woman he thought was his sister was actually his mother, 17 years old and a showgirl with the renowned Earl Carroll Dancers who had a love affair with an older man, 27-year-old Don Furcillo, (b. 5/13/1936.) When June became pregnant, her mother claimed that the child was her own with her husband John. The pact was made of a conspiracy of silence. It was not until Jack Nicholson was 37 years of age, the year 1974, that he learned that his sister June was his mother. She was gone by then, having died of cancer in 1963 at age 44. His birth father also died of cancer in 1997.
From the beginning, the adorable little boy was surrounded by women and the adoration of women — his mother Mud, his older sisters, June, 18 years his senior and Lorraine, older by 16, grandmother Ella, and, of course, the beauty parlor contingent, the cacophony of women in and out of the house. He chanced upon film at age 17 during a trip to California. Starting out as an office boy at MGM’s cartoon department, he studied acting for stage roles and in TV soap operas. In 1958 he made a debut in a Roger Corman quickie, “The Cry Baby Killer,” followed by a series of Corman vehicles for sex and violence, horror and action. “Easy Rider,” 1969, was his breakthrough film.
He began to emerge for structured, layered performances that were gripping, holding the attention of his audience. Jack smokes incessantly. He went through an intense drug period, all the way from “Rider” to “Hoffa,” including the use of LSD, but he gave that up after waking up in a tree one morning. Starting in 1971, Jack directed several films with modest distinction.
After an early marriage to Sandra Knight, 1962-’67, he and Angelica Huston were a couple for 13 years until the relationship ended in 1986. He eventually married his pregnant girlfriend, Rebecca Broussard, and they had two kids; daughter Lorraine was born on 4/16/1990 and son Raymond 2/20/1992. After the end of this relationship, he had a year-long relationship with Lara Flynn Boyle that ended in September 2000.
On Oscar night, 3/23/2003, Jack stood up for his role in “About Schmidt.”
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