John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American actor, film director, producer, and writer. He is known for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. His twelve Oscar nominations make him the second most nominated actor of all time, tied with Katharine Hepburn, and behind only Meryl Streep.

 

Nicholson was nominated for an Academy Award twelve times and won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and for As Good as It Gets. He also won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the 1983 film Terms of Endearment. He is tied with Walter Brennan for most acting wins by a male actor (three). Nicholson was well known for playing villainous roles such as Jack Torrance in The Shining, Frank Costello in The Departed, and the Joker in 1989's Batman, among many other roles.

 

Nicholson was one of only two actors to be nominated for an Academy Award for acting in every decade from the 1960s to 2000s; the other is Michael Caine. He won seven Golden Globe Awards, and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2001. In 1994, he became one of the youngest actors to be awarded the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award. Notable films in which he has starred include Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Passenger, The Shining, Reds, Terms of Endearment, Batman, A Few Good Men, As Good as It Gets, About Schmidt, Anger Management, and The Departed.

 

Early life

Nicholson was born in St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City,[citation needed] the son of a showgirl, June Frances Nicholson (stage name June Nilson).June had married Italian American showman Donald Furcillo (stage name Donald Rose) six months earlier in Elkton, Maryland, on October 16, 1936.Furcillo was already married. Although he reportedly offered to take care of the child, June's mother Ethel insisted that she bring up the baby, partly so that June could pursue her dancing career. Although Furcillo claimed to be Nicholson's father and to have committed bigamy by marrying June, biographer Patrick McGilligan asserted in Jack's Life that Latvian-born Eddie King (originally Edgar A. Kirschfeld),June's manager, may have been Nicholson's biological father. Other sources suggest June Nicholson was unsure of who the father was.Nicholson's mother was of Irish, English, and Pennsylvania Dutch descent,though he and his family reportedly self-identified as Irish.

 

Nicholson was brought up believing that his grandparents, John Joseph Nicholson (a department store window dresser in Manasquan, New Jersey) and Ethel May (née Rhoads, a hairdresser, beautician and amateur artist in Manasquan), were his parents. Nicholson only discovered that his "parents" were actually his grandparents and his sister was in fact his mother in 1974, after a journalist for TIME magazine who was doing a feature on Nicholson informed him of the fact. By this time, both his mother and grandmother had died (in 1963 and 1970, respectively). Nicholson has stated he does not know who his biological father is, saying "Only Ethel and June knew and they never told anybody",and has chosen not to have a DNA test or to pursue the matter.

 

Nicholson grew up in Neptune City, New Jersey.He was raised in his mother's Roman Catholic religion.Before starting high school, his family moved to an apartment in Spring Lake, New Jersey."Nick", as he was known to his high school friends, attended nearby Manasquan High School, where he was voted "class clown" by the Class of 1954. He was in detention every day for a whole school year. A theatre and a drama award at the school are named in his honor. In 2004, Nicholson attended his 50-year high school reunion accompanied by his aunt Lorraine.

 

Personal life

Family and relationships

Nicholson's only marriage was to Sandra Knight from 1962 to 1968. They had one daughter together, Jennifer (born 1963). Actress Susan Anspach contends that her son, Caleb Goddard (born 1970), was fathered by Nicholson, though he is not convinced he is the father.Nicholson has a daughter, Honey Hollman (born 1981) from his relationship with actress Winnie Hollman, and two children from his relationship with actress Rebecca Broussard: Lorraine (born 1990) and Raymond Nicholson (born 1992). Jack's daughter, Lorraine Nicholson, graduated from Brown University on May 28, 2012. Jack attended this important event, and was staying in a hotel in Providence .He has been romantically linked to numerous actresses and models, including Michelle Phillips, Bebe Buell, Janice Dickinson, Rachel Ward, and Lara Flynn Boyle. Nicholson also had a long-term relationship with actress Anjelica Huston.

 

Vandalism charge

In a criminal lawsuit filed on February 8, 1994, Robert Blank stated that Nicholson, then 56, approached Blank's Mercedes-Benz while he was stopped at a red light in North Hollywood. After accusing the other man of cutting him off in traffic, Nicholson used a golf club to bash the roof and windshield of Blank's car. A witness confirmed Blank's account of the incident, and misdemeanor charges of assault and vandalism were filed against Nicholson. Charges were dropped after Nicholson apologized to Blank and the two reached an undisclosed settlement, which included a reported $500,000 check from Nicholson.

 

Nicholson later expressed regret about the incident in an interview with Us Magazine, calling it "a shameful incident in my life." He explained that a close friend had recently died, and that he had also been under a good deal of stress during the shooting of his most recent movie, The Crossing Guard. In that film, directed by Sean Penn, Nicholson played Freddie Gale, a man who vows to wreak vengeance on the drunk driver who killed his daughter. According to Nicholson, he went "out of my mind" after being cut off and snatched one of his golf clubs from the trunk of his car. Though press reports of the incident variously reported that the club in question had been a three- or a five-iron, Nicholson (who started golfing seriously after learning the game for the filming of 1990's The Two Jakes) cleared up the issue in a 2007 interview with Golf Digest. "I was on my way to the course, and in the midst of this madness I somehow knew what I was doing," he says, "because I reached into my trunk and specifically selected a club I never used on the course: my two-iron."

 

The road rage incident wasn't the last time Nicholson's volatile temper made news. A legendary fan of the Los Angeles Lakers professional basketball team, Nicholson has more than once been threatened with ejection from his courtside seats because he argued with or shouted at the game's referees. As BBC News reported, Nicholson was almost ejected from a Lakers playoff game against the San Antonio Spurs in May 2003 after he yelled at the game's referee for calling a third foul on Lakers star Shaquille O'Neal. The incident occurred shortly after the release of his latest movie at the time, Anger Management.