All charm and indoor sunglasses make Jack a colourful character.
By Eoghan Doherty
Undoubtedly one of the greatest actors to have ever appeared in film, Jack Nicholson is this week’s Yellow Tail Colourful Character.
Reknowned for playing unique and slightly unhinged characters, Nicholson has made a name for himself both on and offscreen and is the very definition of an old-school Hollywood leading man, right up there with actors like Marlon Brando, Al Pacino and ahmm, Adam Sandler.
The phrase “Women want him and men want to be him” is bandied about quite a bit, not least when talking about the lads here at JOE, but it wouldn’t be surprising if the phrase had first been used to describe Mr Jack Nicholson.
With an absolutely magnetic personality and proud flasher of that iconic Smile, the actor always seemed destined for a colourful life from a young age. Any guy who was supposedly in detention every day during one particular school year is bound to be really.
For years, Nicholson was raised by his grandmother Ethel May, believing that she was actually his mother, and that her daughter June was his sister. In fact, June turned out to be his real biological mother, something that was revealed to him by an investigative journalist during one, shall we say, particularly interesting interview in 1974. Awkward.
JOE also heard that his other “sister” was actually his next-door neigbour’s Geography teacher’s third cousin twice removed. We think.
The good news is that what isn’t in doubt is Nicholson’s Irish heritage, with the actor himself proudly claiming that he comes from the “Lynches of Sligo.” That certainly narrows it down anyway. The most important thing though is that we’re well within our right to claim him as our own.
Another Irish trait (obviously) is that Nicholson is famously phenomenally successful with the ladies and, when asked his thoughts on monogamy replied, “I say monogamy doesn’t make any difference, women suspect you whether it’s true or not.” Seems like fair enough logic really. And you know you’ve really made it though when the street where you live is given the nickname “Bad Boy Drive” after Nicholson moved into Mulholland Drive beside Warren Beatty and Marlon Brando.
The man is also a huge sports fan too and is often seen courtside at LA Lakers games.
He was actually almost thrown out of 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, and was clearly a brilliant incident of life imitating art. Now that’s proper method acting.
Even when he’s in trouble with cops he still manages to be a complete charmer as this one anecdote proves. After being involved in a road rage incident when he was cut off in traffic and attacked the other driver’s car, he produced this great line about why he had attcked the victim with a golf club, “I was on my way to the course, and in the midst of this madness I somehow knew what I was doing because I reached into my trunk and specifically selected a club I never used on the course: my two-iron.”
In his old age, it’s clear that Nicholson hasn’t lost any of that charm either as you can see from this already-famous clip from this year’s Oscars, when he reduced Best Actress winner Jennifer Lawerence to a quivering, excited mess. Lucky divil:
It’s also important to remember that the man is not just a great charmer but a brilliant actor too. In fact, he’s been nominated for a Best Actor Oscar a record 12 times is also one of only two actors to be nominated for an Academy Award for acting in every decade from the 1960s to the 2000. A pretty impressive record for the man who has become an Oscar tradition himself, sitting in the front row proving the point that he’s pretty much the only guy who can wear sunglasses inside and still look good. Well, him and Stevie Wonder I suppose…
The colourful character that is Jack Nicholson has played so many colourful characters in film over the years so here are just some of his highlights. It’s a tough old list to whittle down but some of his greatest films are without doubt Chinatown, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, The Departed and ermm, Wolf?
Here he is as the Joker in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman:
And one of his most iconic speeches as Colonel Jessop, where he shows a young Tom Cruise how to really do SHOUTY ANGRY ACTING properly. This clip’s got something to do with truth-handling or something…
Check out his cool-as-a-cucumber acceptance speech when he won his first of three Oscars for his powerful portrayal of Randle P McMurphy in Roman Polanski’s One Flew Over The Cukoo’s Nest (1975):
And last, but certainly not least, here’s the great man in Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, The Shining. Don’t watch it with the lights off…
