Jack Nicholson

  • Born: April 22, 1937
  • Place of Birth: Neptune, New Jersey

Jack Nicholson's acting career spanned more than five decades and encompassed a number of standout performances that led many to consider him one of the finest actors of his generation. Upon the time of his departure from the film industry in 2010, Nicholson, with twelve Academy Award nominations, was the most nominated male actor in the history of the Academy.

Acting Career

The film that established Jack Nicholson as an actor who was ready for stardom was the 1969 counterculture feature film Easy Rider. He was asked to play the role of George Henson by Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda. For his portrayal of the small-town southern lawyer, Nicholson won the Best Supporting Actor Award from the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics. He also received a 1969 Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Because of Easy Rider, Nicholson no longer had to do the B-movies or guest spots on television programs that largely defined his early career as an actor.

In 1970, Nicholson starred in Five Easy Pieces, a film directed by Bob Rafelson. The film garnered praise, and Nicholson proved that he could be counted on to deliver a stellar performance as the lead actor of a feature film. For his performance as a man out of touch with the world around him, Nicholson earned his first Academy Award nomination as Best Actor and solidified his position as one of the most respected actors working in Hollywood.

In 1971, he starred in the controversial film Carnal Knowledge. Directed by Mike Nichols, this sexually charged film presented Nicholson with a chance to play a darkly serious character with what would become his trademark ironic sense of humor.

He received his second Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in 1973 for the film The Last Detail. A third nomination came the next year for his extraordinary performance in Roman Polanski’s period film Chinatown (1974). The film received critical acclaim and was a major hit at the box office.

Nicholson’s best year of the decade was arguably 1975. He appeared in four films, including The Passenger, Tommy, The Fortune, and One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It was his portrayal of Randle McMurphy in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest that established Nicholson as one of the most popular screen stars working in the 1970s. For his portrayal, he finally won an Academy Award for Best Actor, and the film won a total of five awards, including Best Picture.

Along with Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Gene Hackman, Jack Nicholson ushered in a new breed of Hollywood leading men during the 1970s. These actors could brilliantly portray characters who did not fit in with the society around them and who were damaged in some way. These and other prominent American actors of the 1970s did not follow in the footsteps of the “common man” heroes that Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, or Gregory Peck played in earlier decades. They also did not play the John Wayne type of larger-than-life hero. Instead, they were drawn to roles in which they portrayed antiheroes, and perhaps no actor was better at playing the outsider and the rebellious, free-spirited character than Nicholson.

Jack Nicholson’s first film of the 1980s, The Shining (1980), featured him in what would become one of his iconic roles, that of mentally disturbed writer Jack Torrance. Based on the 1977 Stephen King novel and directed by Stanley Kubrick, the film followed the repressed writer’s descent into madness and violence. Although now regarded as one of the best horror films ever made, The Shining was panned by most reviewers.

Critics of Nicholson’s over-the-top performance in The Shining faulted him for abandoning the realistic roles that had made him famous. His portrayal of American playwright Eugene O’Neill in Reds (1981), which was directed by his friend Warren Beatty, was greeted as a return to form, and Nicholson was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. He also won praise for his understated role as a Texas border patrolman in Tony Richardson’s The Border (1982).

Nicholson appeared next as an aging playboy in James Brooks’s bittersweet Terms of Endearment (1983), based on a 1975 novel by Larry McMurtry. The film was one of the most critically and commercially successful of the decade and earned Nicholson an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. It was his second Oscar.

Famed director John Huston’s black comedy Prizzi’s Honor (1985) starred Nicholson as a hit man smitten with another paid killer, played by Kathleen Turner. Based on a 1982 novel by Richard Condon, the film brought Nicholson another nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actor. However, it was Huston’s daughter (and Nicholson’s companion) Anjelica Huston who took home the film’s only Oscar—for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

Nicholson took two important roles in 1987, beginning with his portrayal of Daryl Van Horne in the satanic comedy The Witches of Eastwick (1987). Based on the 1984 novel by John Updike, the film also starred Cher, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer. Nicholson played a radically different character—a guilt-ridden, alcoholic drifter—in the Depression-era Ironweed (1987), based on a 1983 novel by William Kennedy. He and costar Meryl Streep were both nominated for Academy Awards.

Nicholson’s final role of the 1980s, the Joker in Tim Burton’s Batman (1989), would turn out to be one of his favorites. Given free rein to return to the energetic, exuberant style he had displayed in The Shining, he was credited with carrying the film. At the same time, the actor’s personal life was proving equally dramatic. The 1989 revelation that his lover Rebecca Broussard was expecting their child effectively ended his relationship with Anjelica Huston.

Standout performances in the 1990s for Nicholson began with his portrayal of a colonel on trial for his involvement in circumstances that led to the death of a US Marine in Rob Reiner's A Few Good Men (1992). Nicholson's performance, which included several iconic scenes in a military courtroom, earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Nicholson's portrayal of Jimmy Hoffa in the film Hoffa (1992) earned the actor acclaim from critics despite the movie itself receiving much more polarized reviews. Further acclaim came from his performance in As Good as It Gets (1997) as a reclusive writer with obsessive-compulsive disorder who slowly builds a tenuous relationship with both his neighbor and a waiter that he has bonded with. Nicholson's performance in As Good as It Gets won him his second Academy Award for Best Actor. (Helen Hunt, who played opposite of Nicholson, won Best Actress.) Previously, in 1994, Nicholson was awarded the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award.

The 2000s proved to be equally fruitful for Nicholson, who received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his performance in About Schmidt (2002). The film, in which Nicholson plays a recent retiree experiencing an existential crisis, was hugely successful both among critics and at the box office. His appearance in Anger Management (2003) alongside Adam Sandler was less successful among critics but performed well at the box office. Nicholson's performance in Martin Scorsese's The Departed (2006) as an Irish mob boss in Boston, Massachusetts, won Nicholson critical acclaim, and although he was not nominated, the film itself was nominated for five Academy Awards (winning four, including Best Picture and Best Director). In The Bucket List, Nicholson's final appearance of the decade, he and Morgan Freeman portrayed terminally ill men who attempt to cross as many events as possible off of their list of things to do before they die in the time that they have left. Although it received mixed reviews from critics, audiences enjoyed it, and it was very successful at the box office.

The 2010s consisted of just one appearance for Nicholson, 2010s How Do You Know, a romantic comedy which also stars Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, and Paul Rudd. The film, which performed poorly with critics, served to be Nicholson's first and only film performance of the decade as the actor stepped away from the industry for an extended period of time following the release of the film. Although he initially did not refer to his leave of absence as retirement, instead saying that he enjoyed the freedom of not working, Nicholson did not return for any film roles for the remainder of the decade, leading many to consider the actor effectively retired.

Impact

Jack Nicholson's career as an actor is among the most illustrious in America. Upon the time of his departure from acting in 2010, Nicholson's twelve Academy Award nominations made him the most nominated male actor in the history of the organization. His five-decade long career consisted of a number of standout performances, leading many to consider Nicholson as one of the greatest actors of all time.

Bibliography

Fear, David. "Jack Nicholson: 25 Essential Movies."Rolling Stone, 22 Apr. 2021, www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-lists/jack-nicholson-25-essential-movies-986764. Accessed 21 May 2024.

Juneau, Jen. "Inside Jack Nicholson's Life Away from the Spotlight as He Turns 87—And Whether He'll Ever Return to Acting." People, 22 Apr. 2024, people.com/jack-nicholson-87th-birthday-life-now-potential-return-to-acting-8636803. Accessed 21 May 2024.

McGilligan, Patrick. Jack’s Life: A Biography of Jack Nicholson. New York: W. W. Norton, 1994.

Shepherd, Donald. Jack Nicholson: An Unauthorized Biography. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991.