70 Reasons to Love Jack Nicholson

70 Reasons to Love Jack Nicholson by Maggie Van Ostrand Jack Nicholson had a birthday over the weekend and you’ll never guess by looking at him which one it was. We all have our own reasons here in the U.S. of A and across the Big Pond, The Scotsman (which is why some of the words have funny spellings) has listed 70 more reasons to love the guy. 1: NICHOLSON is a basketball nut, and is said to pay for his own court side seats to support his beloved LA Lakers. He enjoys hounding the opposition and the referee, and was arguing with officials so much during a 2001 Lakers playoff game that he was assessed as a technical foul. His refusal to miss a home game means that directors need to schedule filming around the Lakers’ home fixtures. 2: HE OWNS an impressive collection of fine art, which includes works by Tamara de Lempicka and Pablo Picasso. One of the Picassos hangs in his toilet. 3: AS WELL as basketball, he loves golf and is a keen player and spectator. His clubs are often to hand - as they were in 1994, when he smashed the window of a car with a three iron after a traffic dispute. 4: IN A TOP 100 poll of celebrity golfers from the world of cinema and television, published in Golf Digest magazine, the 12-handicap Nicholson came in 38th - just behind Sylvester Stallone and slightly ahead of Clint Eastwood. Dennis Quaid topped the poll, with a handicap of 1.1. 5: MULHOLLAND Drive in Beverly Hills, where Nicholson lives, is nicknamed “Bad Boy Drive” because its former residents have included one-time lothario Warren Beatty and the late Marlon Brando. 6: HE WAS a boyhood friend of Danny DeVito. Their relatives ran a hair salon together. 7: HE WAS abandoned by his father as a child, and grew up believing that his mother was a much older sister and his grandmother was his mother. The truth was discovered and revealed to him in adulthood by a journalist who was researching his background for a story. 8: HE IS ONE of only two actors to be nominated for an Academy Award for acting in every decade since the 1960s. The other is Michael Caine. 9: ON THE birth of his son, after having fathered two daughters, he proclaimed: “I finally got it right.” 10: AFTER Marlon Brando’s death almost three years ago, Nicholson acquired his late friend’s bungalow for £3.4 million, and promptly had it demolished. This was done, he said, out of respect to Brando’s legacy. He is reportedly planning to turn the site into a giant flowerbed. 11: ONE of his most impressive on-screen threats was as Colonel Jessep in 1992’s A Few Good Men: “I’m gonna rip the eyes out of your head and piss in your dead skull! You f***ed with the wrong marine!” 12: ONE of his axioms is “You only lie to two people in your life: your girlfriend and the police”. 13: ONLY Meryl Streep has racked up more acting nominations than him at the Academy Awards: she has 13 compared to his 12. 14: “I ONLY take Viagra when I am with more than one woman.” 15: HIS motto is “more good times.” 16: WHEN asked by a photographer to remove his sunglasses for a photo, Nicholson, who rarely is seen in public without a pair of shades, replied: “You’re new here, aren’t you?” 17: “I DON’T want people to know what I’m actually like. It’s not good for an actor.” 18: “WOMEN today are better hung than the men.” As Jonathan, in 1971’s Carnal Knowledge. 19: “ONE of us had to die. With me, it tends to be the other guy.” As gangster Frank Costello in 2006’s The Departed. 20: ACTOR Harry Dean Stanton was the best man at Nicholson’s wedding, and the two have appeared in six films together. 21: “BEER, it’s the best damn drink in the world.” 22: WHEN he first came to Hollywood, he worked as a runner for the legendary animation house Hanna-Barbera. Seeing his talent as an artist, they offered him a position as an animator. However, citing his desire to become an actor, he declined. 23: HAVING slept with an estimated 2,000 women, he is on Maxim magazine’s “Top 10 Living Legends of Sex” list. 24: NICHOLSON is showing no sign of slowing down, despite his advancing years. Last year in an interview, asked about the lovers he has had, he said: “In terms of age, you could say that, over the past year, I’ve probably covered the territory from 21 to 61.” 25: “IT’S real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace.” As George Hanson in Easy Rider. 26: FOR his role as The Joker in the 1989 film Batman, Nicholson earned around $60 million in total. He negotiated a deal that gave him royalties on all merchandise, which remains the biggest single-movie pay cheque for any actor. 27: “AS MY plastic surgeon always said: if you gotta go, go with a smile.” As The Joker in Batman. 28: HE WAS voted ‘Class Clown’ by his contemporaries in the class of 1954 at Manasquan High School in Manasquan, New Jersey. 29: HE WAS nominated for a Razzie Award as Worst Actor twice in the same year, for his performances in Man Trouble and Hoffa in 1992. 30: HE WAS awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute in 1994. 31: HE APOLOGISED to Nicole Kidman after chatting her up at an awards night - in front of her partner Keith Urban. He said: “I didn’t know Nicole was engaged, or that she was standing with her fiancé.” 32: THREE months ago he was voted the world’s sexiest older man in a Love Film poll. 33: UPON seeing his first marijuana cigarette in Easy Rider, his character George Hanson exclaims: “Lord have mercy! Is that what that is?” 34: “PEOPLE who speak in metaphors should shampoo my crotch.” 35: IN 2004 he attended his 50-year high school reunion, much to the surprise and delight of his fellow classmates. 36: BOB KANE, Batman’s creator, personally recommended him for the role of the Joker. 37: HE PLEDGED his support to striking French actors when they interrupted a film shoot in Paris recently, telling them, in broken French: “The struggle continues!” 38: ACCORDING to neighbours at his home in Nebraska, he has a penchant for strolling about his house naked. 39: “WHICH one of you nuts has got any guts?” To the other mental patients as McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. 40: HE TURNED down the role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather, as well as a role in Apocalypse Now opposite Brando. 42: HE LOVES jokes at his own expense so much that he shows up at every Academy Awards ceremony hosted by Billy Crystal, who in turn incorporates Nicholson into his gags. 42: “I’M JUST your average horny little devil.” As the devil in 1987’s The Witches of Eastwick. 43: HE WAS neither credited nor paid for his role in 1987’s Broadcast News at his own request, as he didn’t want to distract attention from the leads. 44: WHEN getting ready to play his nude scenes in 1971’s Carnal Knowledge, he prepared those on set by warning: “Here comes Big Steve!” 45: “I’M NOT going to sit here and pretend that I haven’t been a rogue most of my life.” 46: FOR the scene in The Shining where Jack breaks down the bathroom door, the props department built a door that could be easily broken. However, Nicholson, who once worked as a volunteer fire marshal, tore it apart easily so the props department were forced to build a stronger door. 47: HE AD-LIBBED the line “Here’s Johnny!” in The Shining, in imitation of announcer Ed McMahon’s famous introduction of Johnny Carson on US television’s The Tonight Show. 48: IN ONE Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the script called for Nicholson to leap on a guard and kiss him. During filming, director Milos Forman decided that the guard’s reaction wasn’t strong enough and told Nicholson to jump on the other guard instead. This surprised the second actor so much that, in some versions of the film, he can be seen punching Nicholson. 49: IT IS rumoured he underwent ECT therapy during the scene when his character does in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. 50: AT THE 1976 Academy Awards receiving the Best Actor award for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, he quipped: “I guess this proves there are just as many nuts in the Academy as anywhere else.” 51: HIS line “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!” from A Few Good Men was 29th in the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 greatest movie quotes. “Here’s Johnny!” was 68th. 52: HEARTS melted when he told Helen Hunt: “You make me want to be a better man” in As Good as it Gets. 53: HE GOT rid of the internet in his house because “There’s so much darn porn out there, I never got out of the house.” 54: HE WAS voted the ninth-best autographer in Hollywood in Autograph Collector’s 2006 survey. 55: HE HELPED re-write the script The Departed, writing in a love scene where his character wears a strap-on sex toy. 56: HE WROTE an emotional obituary for Brando in Rolling Stone magazine, admitting that Brando had been his idol all his professional life. 57: KIM Basinger described him as “the most highly sexed individual I have ever met”. 58: IN FIVE Easy Pieces, when a waitress asks if he wants her to “hold the chicken” on his sandwich, he replies: “I want you to hold it between your knees.” 59: TO PROMOTE his 2004 film Something’s Gotta Give, he invented a real-life romance with co-star Diane Keaton. 60: DURING the filming of Easy Rider he broke one of Peter Fonda’s ribs with his knees, clinging too tightly while riding pillion. 61: HIS high-profile flings include Faye Dunaway, Bette Midler and Lara Flynn Boyle. 62: HE IS rumoured to have dated Kate Moss. 63: “I HOPE it doesn’t sound wrong but I think, Jesus Christ, I was really good-looking.” 64: ACTRESS Karen Mayo-Chandler said of him: “He’s a non-stop sex machine. No-one can compare with Jack in bed - he put me on another planet.” 65: “I HAVE never lied to you, I have always told you some version of the truth.” As Harry in Something’s Gotta Give. 66: HIS next role is with Morgan Freeman in The Bucket List, a film in which they play two terminally ill men who escape from a cancer ward and head off on a road trip with a wishlist of things to do before they die. Nicholson shaved off his famously wayward hair for the role. 67″WHY can’t we work out our differences? Why can’t we work things out? Little people, why can’t we all just get along?” As the US president to Martians in Mars Attacks! 68. “LITTLE pigs, little pigs, let me in. Not by the hair of your chinny-chin-chin? Well then I’ll huff and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in!” Before attacking the bathroom door with an axe in The Shining. 69: HE was married once, in 1962, to actress Sandra Knight. His longest relationship was for 17 years with actress Anjelica Huston, the daughter of film director John Huston. The relationship ended when it was reported that actress Rebecca Broussard had become pregnant with his child. And The Scotsman waits till the end to lay on us the best one: 70: He said “WITH my sunglasses on, I’m Jack Nicholson. Without them, I’m fat and 70.” Not too many people know that Jack also visits cancer patients at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles to cheer them up. Maybe that would go against his bad boy image, but it’s nice to hear just the same. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JACK!! Source: http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/bizz-buzz/70-reasons-to-love-jack-nicholson.php