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John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is a
highly successful, icon|iconic United
States|American method acting| method actor.  He
is best known to his friends as Pickles for
portraying antagonistic, cynical, neurotic and
aggressive fictional character|characters. He
received Kennedy Center Honors in 2001, and has
been nominated for an Academy Award a dozen times,
winning three of them.  He has also won seven
Golden Globe Awards.

He was born in New York, New York, although until
1974 he had thought his place of birth was his
hometown, Neptune Township, New Jersey. A
journalist's research uncovered what apparently
had happened: the woman he had always thought of
as his mother was actually his grandmother, who
had arranged to raise him as her own child.  She
did this because he was actually the
illegitimacy|illegitimate offspring of her
daughter, a woman whom Nicholson thought was his
older sister. For this reason (and despite
contradictorily being pro-choice) he is personally
anti-abortion saying, "I'm very contra my
constituency in terms of abortion because I'm
positively against it. I don't have the right to
any other view. My only emotion is gratitude,
literally, for my life."

Nicholson started his career as an actor, writer,
and producer, working for and with Roger Corman.
This included his screen debut in The Cry Baby
Killer (1958 in film|1958), where he played a
juvenile delinquent who panics after shooting two
other teenagers, and Little Shop of Horrors, in
which he had a small role as a masochistic dental
patient.

His work with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper on the
LSD-fueled The Trip led to his real break. That
film led to a small supporting role in Easy Rider
(1969 in film|1969), for which he received his
first Oscar nomination. A Best Actor nomination
came the following year for his persona-defining
role in Five Easy Pieces (1970 in film|1970),
which includes his famous Five Easy Pieces#Famous
Quote|chicken salad dialogue about getting what
you want.  

Other early movies he is known for include Hal
Ashby's The Last Detail (1973 movie)|The Last
Detail (1973 in film|1973), Roman Polanski's
Chinatown (1974 movie)|Chinatown (1974 in
film|1974), Milos Forman's One Flew Over the
Cuckoo's Nest (1975 in film|1975), for which he
received his first Oscar, and Stanley Kubrick's
The Shining (film)|The Shining. Nicholson won an
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his
role in Terms of Endearment (1983 in film|1983).

The 1989 in film|1989 Batman (1989 movie)|Batman,
where Nicholson played the supervillain Joker
(comics)|The Joker, was an international smash
hit, and a lucrative percentage deal earned
Nicholson about $50 million
http://www.filmaction.com/hollywood%20eh.htm. 

For his role as hotheaded Col. Nathan R. Jessup in
A Few Good Men (1992 in film|1992), a dark movie
about a murder in a US Marine Corps unit, he
received yet another nomination by the Academy. 
This film contains Nicholson's A Few Good
Men#Famous_quotes|"You can't handle the truth!"
scene, which has since become widely known and
imitated.

Not all of Nicholson's performances are praised;
his take on the U.S. President in Mars Attacks
(1996 in film|1996) was widely criticized for
being over-the-top and unfunny.
Nicholson would go on to win his next Oscar for
his role as the neurotic lead in the romance As
Good As It Gets (1997 in film|1997). 

The September 11, 2001 attacks led Nicholson to
focus on comedy|comedies. In About Schmidt (2002
in film|2002), Nicholson portrayed a retired
Omaha, Nebraska insurance man who questions his
own life and the death of his wife shortly
afterward. The deeply emotional, slow film stands
in sharp contrast to many of his previous roles.
In the comedy Anger Management, he plays an
aggressive therapist alongside Adam Sandler.  His
most recent film is the 2003 in film|2003
Something's Gotta Give (movie)|Something's Gotta
Give.

Nicholson is also a well-known and highly visible
fan of the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers; he has
courtside seats, and attends whenever his schedule
allows. When he is at a televised Lakers game, he
is invariably sought out for celebrity camera
shots during one or more breaks in the game.

Nicholson is said to have called Fidel Castro a
"genius" while visiting Cuba, according to former
Cuban intelligence officer Delfin Fernandez, who
also revealed that during his visit his room was
bugged with both video and audio recording
devices.



==Filmography==
*The Cry Baby Killer (1958)
*The Wild Ride (1960)
*Too Soon to Love (1960)
*The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)
*Studs Lonigan (1960)
*The Broken Land (1962)
*The Raven (1963)
*The Terror (1963) (also director)
*Ensign Pulver (1964)
*Flight to Fury (1964) (also writer)
*Back Door to Hell (1964)
*Ride in the Whirlwind (1965) (also producer and
writer)
*The Shooting (1967) (also producer)
*The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967)
*Hells Angels on Wheels (1967)
*Psych-Out (1968)
*Head (movie)|Head (1968) (Cameo) (also producer
and writer)
*Easy Rider (1969)
*The Rebel Rousers (1970)
*On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970)
*Five Easy Pieces (1970)
*Chronicles: Van's Last Performance (1971)
(documentary)
*Carnal Knowledge (1971)
*A Safe Place (1971)
*The King of Marvin Gardens (1972)
*The Last Detail (1973)
*Chinatown (1974 movie)|Chinatown (1974)
*Professione: reporter (The Reporter, 1975)
*Tommy (1975)
*The Fortune (1975)
*One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
*The Missouri Breaks (1976)
*The Last Tycoon (film)  (1976)
*Goin' South (1978) (also director)
*The Shining (film)|The Shining (1980)
*Our Lady of the Small Cross (1981) (documentary)
*The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)
*Reds (1981)
*The Border (1982)
*Terms of Endearment (1983)
*Prizzi's Honor (1985)
*Heartburn (movie) (1986)
*The Witches of Eastwick (1987)
*Broadcast News (film)|Broadcast News (1987)
*Ironweed (1987)
*Batman (movie) (1989)
*The Two Jakes (1990) (also director and producer)
*Man Trouble (1992)
*A Few Good Men (1992)
*Hoffa (1992)
*Wolf (movie)|Wolf (1994)
*The Crossing Guard (1995)
*Blood and Wine (1996)
*The Evening Star (1996)
*Mars Attacks! (1996)
*As Good as It Gets (1997)
*Junket Whore (1998) (documentary)
*The Pledge (2001)
*Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001)
(documentary)
*About Schmidt (2002)
*Anger Management (2003)
*Something's Gotta Give (movie)|Something's Gotta
Give (2003)
*The Departed (2006) (currently in pre-production)

== External links ==
*imdb name|name=Jack Nicholson|id=0000197

	Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is a
highly successful, iconic United States|American
method acting| method actor.  He is best known to
his friends as Pickles for portraying
antagonistic, cynical, neurotic and aggressive
fictional character|characters. He received
Kennedy Center Honors in 2001, and has been
nominated for an Academy Award a dozen times,
winning three of them.  He has also won seven
Golden Globe Awards.

He was born in New York City, although until 1974
he had thought his place of birth was his
hometown, Neptune Township, New Jersey. He
attended high school at nearby Manasquan High
School, where a drama award was ultimately named
in his honor.  A journalist's research uncovered
what apparently had happened: the woman he had
always thought of as his mother was actually his
grandmother, who had arranged to raise him as her
own child.  She did this because he was actually
the illegitimacy|illegitimate offspring of her
daughter, a woman whom Nicholson thought was his
older sister. For this reason (and despite
contradictorily being pro-choice) he is personally
anti-abortion saying, "I'm very contra my
constituency in terms of abortion because I'm
positively against it. I don't have the right to
any other view. My only emotion is gratitude,
literally, for my life."

Nicholson started his career as an actor, writer,
and producer, working for and with Roger Corman.
This included his screen debut in The Cry Baby
Killer (1958 in film|1958), where he played a
juvenile delinquent who panics after shooting two
other teenagers, and Little Shop of Horrors, in
which he had a small role as a masochistic dental
patient.

His work with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper on the
LSD-fueled The Trip led to his real break. That
film led to a small supporting role in Easy Rider
(1969 in film|1969), for which he received his
first Oscar nomination. A Best Actor nomination
came the following year for his persona-defining
role in Five Easy Pieces (1970 in film|1970),
which includes his famous Five Easy Pieces#Famous
Quote|chicken salad dialogue about getting what
you want.  

Other early movies he is known for include Hal
Ashby's The Last Detail (1973 movie)|The Last
Detail (1973 in film|1973), Roman Polanski's
Chinatown (1974 movie)|Chinatown (1974 in
film|1974), Milos Forman's One Flew Over the
Cuckoo's Nest (1975 in film|1975), for which he
received his first Oscar, and Stanley Kubrick's
The Shining (film)|The Shining. Nicholson won an
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his
role in Terms of Endearment (1983 in film|1983).

The 1989 in film|1989 Batman (1989 movie)|Batman,
where Nicholson played the supervillain Joker
(comics)|The Joker, was an international smash
hit, and a lucrative percentage deal earned
Nicholson about $50 million
http://www.filmaction.com/hollywood%20eh.htm. 

For his role as hotheaded Col. Nathan R. Jessep in
A Few Good Men (1992 in film|1992), a dark movie
about a murder in a US Marine Corps unit, he
received yet another nomination by the Academy. 
This film contains Nicholson's A Few Good
Men#Famous_quotes|"You can't handle the truth!"
scene, which has since become widely known and
imitated.

Not all of Nicholson's performances are praised;
his take on the U.S. President in Mars Attacks
(1996 in film|1996) was widely criticized for
being over-the-top and unfunny.
Nicholson would go on to win his next Oscar for
his role as the neurotic lead in the romance As
Good As It Gets (1997 in film|1997). 

The September 11, 2001 attacks led Nicholson to
focus on comedy|comedies. In About Schmidt (2002
in film|2002), Nicholson portrayed a retired
Omaha, Nebraska insurance man who questions his
own life and the death of his wife shortly
afterward. The deeply emotional, slow film stands
in sharp contrast to many of his previous roles.
In the comedy Anger Management, he plays an
aggressive therapist alongside Adam Sandler.  His
most recent film is the 2003 in film|2003
Something's Gotta Give (movie)|Something's Gotta
Give.

Nicholson is also a well-known and highly visible
fan of the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers; he has
courtside seats, and attends whenever his schedule
allows. When he is at a televised Lakers game, he
is invariably sought out for celebrity camera
shots during one or more breaks in the game.

In 1998, after Nicholson visited Cuba and had a
three hour conversation with Fidel Castro, he told
Daily Variety that, "He is a genius." According to
former Cuban intelligence officer Delfin
Fernandez, Nicholson's hotel room, in Cuba, was
bugged with both video and audio recording devices
at the instruction of Castro.


== Filmography ==
see details|List of Jack Nicholson films

== External links ==
*imdb name|name=Jack Nicholson|id=0000197