All All. Sign In. List activity. Jack Nicholson. Actor Producer Writer Chinatown Jack Nicholson, an American actor, producer, director and screenwriter, is a three-time Academy Award winner and twelve-time nominee. Nicholson is also notable for being one of two actors - the other being Michael Caine - who have received an Oscar nomination in every decade from the '60s through the '00s.
Nicholson was born on April 22, , in Neptune, New Jersey. He was raised believing that his grandmother was his mother, and that his mother, June Frances Nicholson, a showgirl, was his older sister. He discovered the truth in from a Time magazine journalist who was researching a profile on him. His real father is believed to have been either Donald Furcillo, an Italian American showman, or Eddie King Edgar Kirschfeld , born in Latvia and also in show business.
His rise in Hollywood was far from meteoric, and for years, he sustained his career with guest spots in television series and a number of Roger Corman films, including The Little Shop of Horrors Nicholson's first turn in the director's chair was for Drive, He Said Before that, he wrote the screenplay for The Trip , and co-wrote Head , a vehicle for The Monkees. His big break came with Easy Rider and his portrayal of liquor-soaked attorney George Hanson, which earned Nicholson his first Oscar nomination.
Nicholson's film career took off in the s with a definitive performance in Five Easy Pieces Nicholson's other notable work during this period includes leading roles in Roman Polanski 's noir masterpiece Chinatown and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , for which he won his first Best Actor Oscar. A string of well-received films followed, including Terms of Endearment , which earned Nicholson his second Oscar; Prizzi's Honor , and The Witches of Eastwick In the s, he starred in such varied films as A Few Good Men , for which he received another Oscar nomination, and a dual role in Mars Attacks!
Although a glimpse at the darker side of Nicholson's acting range reappeared in The Departed , the actor's most recent roles highlight the physical and emotional complications one faces late in life. The most notable of these is the unapologetically misanthropic Melvin Udall in As Good as It Gets , for which he won his third Oscar. He also became one of the youngest actors to receive the American Film Institute's Life Achievement award in Nicholson has six children by five different women: Jennifer Nicholson b.
