While many of us think Jack Nicholson burst into cinematic celebrity with his role in "Easy Rider," the truth is he had already put in ten long years of trying to make it in Hollywood, In fact, 1969 found Nicholson throwing himself into writing and producing until Rip Torn, who was slated for the role in "Easy Rider," left after a contractual dispute and Nicholson stepped in.
We could say the rest is history, but it is not for despite the countless interviews Nicholson has given there is still much to be learned about this baffling and brilliant actor. The author of biographies of George Cukor, James Cagney and Robert Altman, Patrick McGilligan knows how to document a life.
Renowned for playing estranged loners ("Five Easy Pieces," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), Nicholson was born in 1937 and raised to believe that his mother was his sister. He was never certain who his father was. Despite the question of his parents, he seems to have had a rather conventional upbringing in New Jersey.
Much found in Nicholson's past can be sighted in his present: He was succored by the women who raised him as he has been by his many romantic relationships; he followed professional sports as a youth and attended games with a cadre of his buddies; he was careful with money - today he is one of Hollywood's richest actors.
Nicholson and his close friends declined conversation with the author. Thus, McGilligan has relied on already published material, albeit written with a fresh slant. "Jack's Life" is entertaining, yet the career of one of our most gifted actors is still ongoing. I'm waiting - after all, everyone who saw "Batman" knows that the Joker will return.
- Gail Cooke
The Standard-Setting Biography Of Jack Nicholson This book covers Jack's life from birth to age 57. Jack Nicholson has such a gift for acting that it is, for me, almost unbelievable. This book will let you in on his life so that you, the reader, can understand how this amazing talent came about. Thank you, Jack, for all of your great work.
Good insight into early career, but fades badly. Patrick McGilligan does a good job of examining Nicholson's early career, his work from the late fifties to the early 70's is discussed with insight and detail. The early chapters show a young man searching for his role in an industry he desperately wanted to be part of; and McGilligan focusses on Nicholson's attempt to create a role for himself in Hollywood. You definitely get the feeling that McGilligan had much more access to the people in Jack's life from this time period. But as Nicholson becomes more famous, McGilligan's work seems to lose focus,and as Nicholson became more circumspect when dealing with the media, McGilligan's sources of info seem to dry up. Writing a biography of a living person without access to them in some way will always cause a bio to have a distance that only the best writers can overcome. McGilligan is not able to overcome this deficit and the book becomes tedious as it progresses to repeated mentions of Nicholson's less than ordinary formative years as the child of a woman he grew up believing to be his sister and their presumed affect on his work and relationships. This is a focus for McGilligan as he tries in some way to gain some kind of psychoanalytic understanding of Nicholson and the book bogs down under the weight of these constant asides. By the time the book reaches its end in 1992, I was thoroughly bored with McGilligan's take on what really should have proven to be an interesting life.
Nothing exceeds this man He is Plutonian regeneration. A shining star in a world full of mediocrity. Thanks Jack. Thanks for the inspiration.
There must be more to life then this Unlike some of McGilligan's other subject's, this book is titled somewhat innapropriately as there's some life in the old dog yet. There's evidence that he researched the first 57 year's of the actor's lfe pretty well, but the resulting portrait leaves Jack as enigmatic as the famous grin McGilligan seems so fascinated by. The tone is often sensationalistic, particularly when he argues that Jack my be reading of his possible illigitamacy "for the first time here" Nonetheless, it's an enjoyable read, though I didn't feel I knew Jack any better when I turned the last page, and was more enlightened about 70's Hollywood by Jack's friend Robert Evans, Robert Siskind, and others.
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