Jack Nicholson began his career with low budget movies


After some minor stage and TV experience, Jack Nicholson began to appear in the movies, making his film debut in a lead role in the low-budget ROGER CORMAN production The Cry Baby Killer (1958). Jack Nicholson would continue working on and off with Corman during the next 10 years. Curiously, while any number of writer-directors, including FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA, PETER BOGDANOVICH, Jonathan Demme, and others, have emerged from Roger Corman's school of cinema hard knocks, Jack Nicholson is the only major acting star to have done so. Among Jack Nicholson's Corman-related projects are The Wild Ride (1960), The Little Shop of Horrors (1961), The Terror (1963), The Raven (1963), and The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967). He worked strictly as a screenwriter for The Trip (1967).

After cowriting and coproducing the rock group the Monkees vehicle Head (1968), Jack Nicholson found himself a lastminute fill-in for actor Rip Torn, who was supposed to play the alienated lawyer in Easy Rider. Having acted in more than his share of low-budget motorcycle/psycho/drug movies, there was no reason for Jack Nicholson to expect that this film would be any different from the others. Yet Easy Rider became the huge sleeper hit of 1969, catapulting Jack Nicholson to the brink of stardom with an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor.

If Jack Nicholson's flops were adventurous, so too were his hits. ROMAN POLANSKI's Chinatown (1974) saved Jack Nicholson's flagging career and brought him yet another Oscar nomination. Then he was brilliantly cast as Randle McMurphy in the film version of Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975). The film won all five top Oscars, including a Best Actor Academy Award for Jack Nicholson. The actor began to appear in smaller roles in interesting movies during the latter half of the 1970s and early 1980s. For instance, he sang in a small role in the rock musical Tommy (1975), played in support of ROBERT DE NIRO in The Last Tycoon (1976), WARREN BEATTY in Reds (1981), and SHIRLEY MACLAINE in Terms of Endearment (1983). The last of these performances brought him a Best Supporting Actor ACADEMY AWARD.

Jack Nicholson's commercial standing rose to meet his critical reputation during the mid- to late 1980s with his Oscar-nominated performance in the hit Prizzi's Honor (1985), as well as his starring role in the successful romp The Witches of Eastwick (1987). Though Ironweed (1987) was not a money-maker, his Oscar-nominated performance in this prestigious picture was so strong that it further enhanced his reputation as one of Hollywood's most serious and valued actors. Finally, he topped off the decade with a tour-de-force portrayal of The Joker in the megahit Batman (1989).

In 1994, Jack Nicholson signed on for Wolf, which failed to elevate the werewolf genre to high art, and The Crossing Guard, directed by SEAN PENN. Mars Attacks! (1996) was an extravagant Tim Burton film that cast Jack Nicholson as a moronic American president. When he returned to Bob Rafelson for the seventh time to make Blood and Wine (1996), he shared star billing with Michael Caine.

Things were better for Jack Nicholson the next year with As Good As It Gets (1997), in which Jack Nicholson starred as a misfit, homophobic novelist who finds redemption in the arms of Helen Hunt. This role brought him the Best Actor Academy Award and a Golden Globe to boot. However, even greater roles were to come. In 2001 Jack Nicholson played the lead in The Pledge, expertly directed by Sean Penn. It was described by one critic as representing "the end of the detective novel." In About Schmidt (2002) Jack Nicholson is a dumpy, retired insurance executive who must deal with his frumpy wife's death and his daughter's impending marriage to a man whom he sees as a loser. Traveling in his Winnebago, and corresponding with a Third World orphan, he comes to terms with himself and learns to accept what he cannot change. Jack Nicholson earned another Oscar nomination.

Responding to Jack Nicholson's performance in About Schmidt, New Republic critic Stanley Kauffmann wrote that this picture "verifies again what has long been clear. Any future history of American films must, if it is to be adequate, treat Jack Nicholson as more than a star." The Jack Nicholson–Adam Sandler picture Anger Management (2003) grossed more than $42 million on its opening weekend, proving Jack Nicholson's continuing box-office power. Jack Nicholson, playing psychological counselor Dr. Buddy Rydell, makes Adam Sandler look sane in comparison to his manic antics.

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