Noting that he hadn’t made a movie in three years, yesterday Radarmagazine reported, in a small piece based on unsubstantiated and unattributed third-party information, that Jack Nicholson was stepping away from the big screen for good, due to his fast-deteriorating short term memory. If true, it would mean Nicholson would join the ranks of other aging and increasingly forgetful actors like Gene Hackman and Sean Connery, both of whom chose to quietly retire from the acting business with their dignity still intact.
Despite the shaky nature of the source info, the story went viral, picked up by virtually every major news outlet in the country without question. It took nearly 24 hours before anyone bothered to, you know, ask Nicholson’s people about this.
When someone finally did, the response from the Nicholson camp was that the rumors were “just plain kooky.”
Gotta admit, though, that I found the denial a little disappointing. When I first heard the rumor yesterday, I reacted more than anything with a sense of relief. Can’t say as I would have blamed him if he was calling it quits. In fact I can’t say as I would’ve blamed him had he retired 25 years ago.
Nicholson has had one of the strangest and most respected careers in Hollywood history, beginning with a long string of films at American International, where he appeared in crime films, goofy comedies, existential Westerns and low-budget horror films before establishing his countercultural cred with biker and drug films. Then in 1969 he drove the nail home and cracked it big with Easy Rider. After that it was on to American classics like Five Easy Pieces, Chinatown, Cuckoo’s Nest, The King of Marvin Gardens, hell, from the late ‘60s to the late ‘70s his filmography is a jaw-dropping collection of remarkable performances in amazing films, and along the way he worked with every great living director imaginable, from Kubrick and John Huston to Antonioni, Ken Russell, Roger Corman and Roman Polanski. He even tried his hand at directing himself, with the Vietnam-era college basketball drama Drive, He Said, and the baffling and insane Monkees feature, Head.
Both on and offscreen he was the coolest of hepcats, moving through the world with a sly grace, able somehow to maintain his solid countercultural icon status while at the same time winning the fawning, slobbering respect of the usually braindead Hollywood establishment.
Then came his leering, over the top performance in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. I still love that performance, but somehow after that everything changed. By 1979 he’d already proven everything he needed to prove, and after “Heeeere’s Johnny!” he began the slide into self-parody. He stopped being an actor and became simply Jack Nicholson. It seemed all anyone wanted him to do was reprise his Jack Torrance shtick, and he seemed happy to oblige, flapping his arms and bugging his eyes. Oh, there were a few scattered great roles after that, like his turn as a Depression-era bum in the brilliant Ironweed and his quiet, even sinister take on Eugene O’Neill in Reds, but those are mostly long forgotten now, buried beneath all his howling and hamming in crap like The Witches of Eastwick, Batman, and lord help us all, Wolf.
By the late ‘90s it was as if he’d given up altogether. He even left the cartoon Jack Nicholson behind for the most part, shuffling through lackluster films simply as himself— a pudgy, aging beatnik who didn’t need to prove a damn thing to anyone, and didn’t feel much like trying. His performances were still praised, but I always wondered why. It seemed he was being praised simply for being Jack Nicholson, because he sure wasn’t doing much of anything else. Granted, being Jack Nicholson was still pretty fucking cool by anyone’s standards, but he wasn’t turning out films like The Passenger and The Last Detail anymore—he was in lazy romantic comedies and, lord help us again, Anger Management. Even his Whitey Bulger doppelganger in The Departedseemed a tired walk-through.
Even if I haven’t given a rat’s ass for much of anything he’s done these last 25 years (I’ll give him up through Ironweed), I still have the greatest respect for him, and always will. He’s Jack Nicholson, for godsakes, and it’s not like he’s going to be remembered for As Good as It Gets. Part of me would like to think that maybe, just maybe, he hasn’t made a film in three years simply because he was tired of making such useless crap. He’s always been cool enough and independent enough to make a decision like that, right?
Still, even if his memory is sharp as ever (in spite of his well-documented history of youthful experimentation), maybe he really should consider following the honorable and respectable examples of Cagney and Cary Grant, both of whom chose to step away gracefully before the ugly whispers started. like those two, there’s no one else like Jack Nicholson, and certainly no one to replace him. If he does decide to retire, my hat’s off to him. If he makes another film just to further squash the rumors, well, I suppose I’ll hold my breath, hope for the best, and pray it’s not About Schmidt 2.
Now if someone could just convince Robert DeNiro to retire because, Christ, that’s just sad.
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