Jack Nicholson Biography

22nd of April, 1937 Jack Nicholson is a well-known American film actor of his age, known for his varied portrayals of unorthodox, alienated outcasts. Nicholson, whose father abandoned his family, grew up believing that his grandmother was his mother and that his mother was his elder sister; it wasn't until he became famous that he realized the reality. He came to California after graduating from high school and accepted an office job in Metro-Goldwyn-animation Mayer's department. During the 1957–58 season, he appeared on stage with the Players Ring Theater in Los Angeles and had a few minor appearances on television. Around this time, he met Roger Corman, the king of B-movies, who gave him the main part in his low-budget picture The Cry Baby Killer (1958). Nicholson spent the following decade performing big parts in B-movies (including many more for Corman), minor supporting roles in A-movies (such as Ensign Pulver, 1964), and guest appearances on television shows such as The Andy Griffith Show. He also dabbled in scripting, with his most well-known credits including Roger Corman's LSD-hallucination picture The Trip (1967) and the surrealistic frolic Head (1968), a box office flop starring the Monkees that has since gained a cult following. Easy Rider (1969), a famous counterculture picture starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper as wandering, drug-dealing motorcyclists, and Nicholson in a scene-stealing, Oscar-nominated supporting performance as an alcoholic lawyer, was Nicholson's big break. Nicholson's sudden popularity was cemented with his main performance in Five Easy Pieces (1970), an episodic, existentialist drama that was a key entry in Hollywood's early 1970s "art film" trend. Nicholson received an Oscar nomination for best actor for his depiction of a man estranged from his family, friends, profession, and loves. Carnal Knowledge (1971), directed by Mike Nichols, was a darkly comic indictment of male sexual mores; it was probably mainstream Hollywood's most sexually graphic picture to date. Nicholson's portrayal of an emotionally hollow, predatory chauvinist demonstrated his knack for injecting comedy into severe situations to highlight underlying irony—his worst characters are often wickedly hilarious. Nicholson was nominated for another Oscar for The Last Detail (1973), in which he played a boisterous military police officer who unwillingly takes a young sailor to military jail. He next featured in Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974), a film noir detective film tribute to the 1940s that is widely regarded as a cinematic classic. Nicholson received a fourth Oscar nod for his outstanding portrayal as elegant private detective Jake Gittes, who discovers too late his powerlessness in the face of riches and corruption. The actor capped this highly successful period with his first Academy Award nomination for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), in which his iconoclastic, free-spirited portrayal of mental institution inmate R.P. McMurphy serves as a metaphor for the futility of rebellion against established authority. Other notable Nicholson films from this era include Michelangelo Antonioni's Professione: reporter (1975; The Passenger), in which Nicholson plays a depressed reporter who assumes the identity of a dead man, and Tommy (1975), director Ken Russell's garish production of the Who's rock opera, in which Nicholson plays the title character's doctor and sings in a supporting singing role. Nicholson worked little over the following few years, despite his popularity. He costarred with Marlon Brando in Arthur Penn's western The Missouri Breaks (1976), which was flawed but compellingly eccentric; and he directed and starred in another revisionist western, Goin' South (1978). His next notable role was in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980), an adaptation of Stephen King's novel. It is a film that has divided critics, but it is the one with Nicholson's ax-wielding rampage—culminating in his demonic cry of "Heeeere's Johnny!"—that became one of the era's indelible cinematic images. During the 1980s, Nicholson featured in numerous high-quality films, earning Academy Award nods for Reds (1981), Prizzi's Honor (1985), and I ronweed (1987), and won an Oscar for best supporting actor for his performance as a drunken-but-decent ex-astronaut in Terms of Endearment (1983). Nicholson's over-the-top comedic appearances as the Devil and the Joker in The Witches of Eastwick (1987) and Batman (1989) were two of the decade's most popular performances. By the 1990s, Nicholson had become a film icon. He began the decade with directing and acting in The Two Jakes (1990), a tepid sequel to Chinatown. Hoffa (1992), in which he played the notorious Teamsters head Jimmy Hoffa, and A Few Good Men (1992), in which his supporting performance as a dyspeptic marine colonel garnered him his 10th Oscar nomination, an all-time record for a male actor, were both well appreciated. Nicholson's third Academy Award came from his 11th nomination, for his depiction of a misanthropic writer in As Good As It Gets (1997). (his second for best actor). Nicholson continues to play serious parts in the early twenty-first century. Following his critically acclaimed performance as a world-weary former cop in Sean Penn's The Pledge (2001), he scored another personal triumph with his much-lauded performance as the title character in About Schmidt(2002), a film about a retired widower attempting to mend his relationship with his daughter. Nicholson received his 12th Academy Award nomination for his subtle performance in the melancholy comedy. In Martin Scorsese's The Departed, he played Irish gangster Frank Costello. Nicholson's comic career continued with parts as an over-the-top psychiatrist in Anger Management (2003) and as an elderly playboy who falls in love with a writer (played by Diane Keaton) in Something's Gotta Give (2004). In the 2007 film The Bucket List, Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play two terminally ill men who escape from a medical ward in order to achieve everything they desire before dying. Although Nicholson's widely imitated trademarks of a devilish smile and a slow, detached speaking style remained consistent over the years, his screen persona mellowed in its metamorphosis from iconoclastic leading man to mainstream character actor, and his characters of later years reflect the maturation of his generation in many ways. As he approached his 60s, he frequently portrayed guys who had a young rebellious spirit but have also learnt the importance of empathy. In 1994, Nicholson received the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award.

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