Title: JACKING 'EM IN; WHY JACK NICHOLSON HAS GIVEN UP ON HIS WILD, WOMANISING WAYS.(Features)

Date: 1/24/2003; Publication: The Mirror (London, England);

Byline: ALUN PALMER

The world changed a little in 2002. Jack Nicholson, last of the true Hollywood hellraisers, hung up his boots to live a life of respectability. This is the man who once said he could never sleep alone - and rarely did. Whose animal magnetism was such that girls young enough to be his granddaughter would swoon into his bed.

But last year, the man who Kim Basinger once described as "the most highly sexed individual I have ever met", admitted that he can no longer live up to his reputation.

"I don't have the energy for it any more," revealed Jack, 65. "I'm a different guy here in my sixties. I don't have the same libido. It used to be that I didn't think I could go to sleep if I wasn't involved in some kind of amorous contact or another. Well, I spend a lot of time sleeping alone these days. That's different. And very liberating.

"It wasn't until the last few years that I became completely comfortable with it. My fear is that I'm beginning to prefer it."

His announcement marked the passing of a golden age of Hollywood, even if it is still hard to see Jack sitting in a rocking chair, sipping Horlicks.

In the '60s and '70s, his LA bachelor pad in Mulholland Drive was legendary for its wild parties. The street became known as Bad Boy Alley as Jack lived it up with his near neighbours Marlon Brando and Warren Beatty. Every night, he would be out at a nightclub with a young starlet on his arm and the next day he would be on set delivering another consummate performance.

"There are so many stories about people like me and Warren and Roman Polanski, and most of 'em are rubbish," says Jack, whose latest film, About Schmidt, is released today. "Sure, I love women. Always have, always will. I think maybe some of them have loved me as well. There were few dull moments. I think my sexual activity has been somewhat exaggerated. But I have been lucky, so no complaints there."

He has the 1967 biker movie Easy Rider to thank for making him a star of the screen and of the burgeoning counter-culture.

"Every day throughout the '60s and '70s, life got freer and freer, with the sexual revolution and so forth," he says. "But then the Aids epidemic brought the death f*** into the world. Ask any saloon-keeper - that event changed society. The more repressive seized upon this, blew it up and used it to resist the energy of expression and full freedom. It was a big bell ringing. Ching! There was no denying it and, you know, people changed."

Jack has been married only once, to actress Sandra Knight. They had a daughter, Jennifer, but split up in 1968 after six years.

His longest-running relationship was with movie star Anjelica Huston, who was devastated when he left her after 16 years for Rebecca Broussard, his co-star in the 1990 thriller The Two Jakes. He and Rebecca have two children Lorraine, 12, and 10-year-old Raymond, but the relationship didn't last.

The last beauty on Jack's arm was Twin Peaks' Lara Flynn Boyle who, at 32, was less than half his age. But that romance ended in 2001. If there is no one special in his life at the moment, at least he has plenty of memories to fall back on. Anyway, these days, Jack realises there are more important things.

"I have greater poise inside," he says. "I understand a lot of things. I'm not so driven and I'm more relaxed, but I haven't partied too much lately. I don't do premieres any more. I'd sooner have a beer and watch TV and be with my kids."

If Jack has toned down his offscreen antics, on it he remains as unsurpassable as ever. In the dark comedy drama About Schmidt, he plays Warren Schmidt, an embittered retired life-insurance actuary from Nebraska. After his wife dies and he loses his job, Schmidt is forced to take to the road in his motor home.

"Insurance is one of the most conservative things in the world and Schmidt has lived a life of quiet desperation - one he has created for himself, the way people do," says Jack, who had problems getting into the part.

"I battled with his character for quite a while until I hit on him when I woke up, knowing I had to comb my hair over the bald bit to be Schmidt, and he fell into place. It's the first time on or off the screen I've ever done a comb-over!"

The film also features a scene where Kathy Bates, as the mother of his son-in-law-to-be, joins him naked in a Jacuzzi.

"Bates was strong in that scene," laughs Jack. "When she comes in with those bare feet - boom, boom, boom! The first thing you see is that she doesn't have any shoes on and then you just know she is naked. It's good. She's a plucky girl, is Bates.

"I was happy with it. I love the film. It's a subtle movie. Everybody always thinks you are the last guy you played, so that's why I'm doing another movie real quick. In the next one I play an insane psychiatrist."

He might have retired from partying, but not from acting. He recently picked up a Best Actor Golden Globe gong for About Schmidt, and is also tipped to win an Oscar nomination for the part. He already has Best Actor Oscars for One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and As Good As It Gets (1997), plus a Supporting Actor Oscar for Terms Of Endearment (1983).

"I don't know where I'll be at 70 - I don't have to know," says Jack. "I don't think I will be married, of that I'm sure. Women have asked me to marry them and I just say, `Next!'"

Some things will never change.

About Schmidt is released today.

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