On this date in 1937, actor Jack Nicholson was born in New Jersey. He appeared in his first movie in 1958. “Five Easy Pieces” (1970) was a breakthrough role. His many notable movies include: “Easy Rider” (1969); “Carnal Knowledge” (1971); “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975), for which he won a Best Actor Oscar; “The Shining” (1980); “Terms of Endearment” (1983), for which he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar; “Prizzi’s Honor” (1985); “Heartburn” (1986); “The Witches of Eastwick” (1987), in which he played “the devil;” “Batman” (1989); “A Few Good Men” (1992), “As Good as It Gets” (1997), which won him a second Best Actor Oscar, “About Schmidt” (2002), “The Bucket List” (2007) and “I’m Still Here” (2010).
Nicholson was raised as a Catholic but stopped attending church in high school. In a 1992 Vanity Fair interview, he said, “I don’t believe in God now.” Twelve years later, in an Esquire magazine interview, he said that he prayed “to something” and had “a God sense. It’s not religious so much as superstitious. It’s part of being human, I guess.”
PHOTO: Nicholson as a 2001 Kennedy Center honoree; © John Mathew Smith under CC 2.0.
