Interviews with the currently renowned actor and with producers, directors, and fellow actors reveal something about his character, life, and outlook

Originally published in 1975, this book is about the enigmatic star and the only one to have Nicholson's participation. In 1975 Nicholson was just becoming a household name in spite of having already starred in, written or produced 25 films.

“Jack’s Life feels true. . . . Fascinating.”—Entertainment Weekly Jack Nicholson has lived large on and off the screen. Patrick McGilligan, one of America’s outstanding film biographers, has plumbed research and interviews to expand his definitive biography since its publication twenty years ago. Jack’s Life captures the essence of this most private and public of stars with a vivid depiction of Nicholson’s tangled Dickensian upbringing, his hungry years as actor and writer, his nearaccidental breakthrough in Easy Rider, and his prolificacy and artistry ever since, with roles in Chinatown, Five Easy Pieces, The Shining, A Few Good Men, As Good As It Gets, and The Departed, to name a beloved handful of his sixty-plus films. McGilligan captures the life and legacy of this unabashed and complex personality

"Volatile Jack Nicholson has found the perfect biographer in Patrick McGilligan, who gives us a rich, absorbing portrait of one of the greatest movie stars ever." —Patricia Bosworth No male American film star of the post-Brando era has demonstrated the talent, the charisma, the larger-than-life audacity, and the string of screen triumphs of Jack Nicholson. In Jack's Life, Patrick McGilligan, one of our finest film historians, has produced the definitive biography of this most private and public of stars, from his tangled Dickensian upbringing in New Jersey, his formative years as an actor and screenwriter, his near-accidental breakthrough to stardom in Easy Rider, and his string of great roles in Chinatown, Five Easy Pieces, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Last Detail, The Shining, and other films that mark him as a searching, complex artist. Here as well is the often Rabelaisian life behind the smiling mask, the legendary romances and appetites for sex and drugs, the obsessions with money and control, and the perpetual restlessness.

After several years of small roles and experimental screenwriting during his early career, Jack Nicholson got his big break in 1969 with Easy Rider. The next year Five Easy Pieces made him a star. Since then the 12-time Academy Award nominee has won Best Actor twice (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and As Good as It Gets). This critical study examines each of Nicholson's film roles, as well as his screenwriting and directorial efforts. Fascinating personal insights are provided through interviews with stars such as Mews Small, James Hong, Millie Perkins, Michael Margotta, Shirley Knight, Joe Turkel, Ed Nelson, Hazel Court, the Monkees, several Apollo astronauts, Hell's Angel Sonny Barger, Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, and many more.

The definitive biography of a man with one of the most iconic and fascinating careers—and lives—in Hollywood. For six decades, Jack Nicholson has been part of film history. With three Oscar wins and twelve nominations to his credit and legendary roles in films like Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Terms of Endearment, The Shining, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Nicholson created original, memorable characters like no other actor of his generation. And his offscreen life has been no less of an adventure—Nicholson has always been at the center of the Hollywood elite and has courted some of the most famous and beautiful women in the world. Relying on years of extensive research and interviews with insiders who know Nicholson best, acclaimed biographer Marc Eliot sheds light on Nicholson’s life on and off the screen. From Nicholson’s working class childhood in New Jersey, where family secrets threatened to tear his family apart, to raucous nights on the town with Warren Beatty and tumultuous relationships with starlets like Michelle Phillips, Anjelica Huston, and Lara Flynn Boyle, to movie sets working with such legendary directors and costars as Dennis Hopper, Stanley Kubrick, and Meryl Streep, Eliot paints a sweeping picture of the breadth of Nicholson’s decades-long career in film and an intimate portrait of the real man. Both a comprehensive tribute to a film legend and an entertaining look at a truly remarkable life, Nicholson is a compulsively readable biography of an iconic Hollywood star.