Title: Interview: Jack
Nicholson: I'M STILL Jack THE LAD.
Date: 6/1/2002; Publication: The Mirror (
Byline: IVAN WATERMAN
IT IS a landmark age for any man. Yet the legend that is Jack Nicholson still radiates a primal energy that belies his 65 years.
Sitting in his hotel suite in
"I don't have any fears of ending up old and lonely," he says, before breaking into a grin and roaring: "Are you kidding!? But, seriously, the ageing process does frighten me.
"I don't like not being able to do stuff I did in the past. I am constantly aware of my age. All I can do now is play golf, because that doesn't involve running.
"The march of mortality does not make me happy. I'd love to live for ever. I just hope I keep my faculties and don't become a burden.
"But I am no different from most guys. I am not brave. I don't think I deal with it better than anybody else."
The list of Jack the Lad's conquests is impressive and there is little sign of his libido faltering, despite his landmark birthday just over a month ago.
These days, Jack lives alone in the hills above
He surrounds himself with a pounds 30million art collection and recoils at the thought of allowing steady girlfriend Lara Flynn Boyle to set up home with him on a full-time basis.
His last live-in love, Rebecca Broussard, who he met on his Chinatown sequel
The Two Jakes, lives down the road with their two children
Dressed in a white sweater and charcoal-coloured blazer, Jack has a thick greying beard and thinning hair.
He looks tired after a day of meetings at the chaotic film festival but still exudes star quality.
Smiling, he says: "It's not women who are a problem - it's me.
"I guess I like my own company too much now. I need my own space. I'm just no good at living with women. Maybe it does take the excitement out of a relationship. Maybe I need that edge. I have never analysed it too much. But I have seen what works."
Jack has a grown daughter Jennifer, 38, from his only marriage, to actress Sandra Knight in the 60s.
And he had a 16-year relationship with Anjelica Huston before ditching her for Broussard. He bitterly regrets the public humiliation that Huston - daughter of his late pal, director John - went through.
But he has rarely been able to keep his hands off women he shouldn't be
playing around with. His relationship with fiery 32-year-old Flynn Boyle, who
starred in
But Jack insists his womanising rep- utation is mostly bogus and heightened by his screen image.
"I don't exactly encourage it," he says. "But that doesn't do me any harm. It gets people interested and they come to see the movies.
"The thing I adore about women is their unpredictability. One moment they may be sipping champagne from a glass... and then they're pitching it in my direction.
"Fortunately for me, I have had enough practice to duck and dive at the appropriate second. "There have been very few dull moments in that particular area. But, so far as my private life is concerned, I never plan the future. Things just seem to... happen.
"Maybe that's me. Maybe I encourage it. That could be the artist in me. I still love painting and I always need inspiration."I need stuff to happen in my life to provide that inspiration. I am very happy at the moment. Things in that department are fine.
"Maybe I am not so sure of myself as I was five years ago. I don't party or do the premiere scene any more. That's work to me. But I keep occupied."
Jack has long had the luxury of doing exactly what he wants. He admits he doesn't have the drive to do three films a year and can pick and choose his roles.
But at one point he considered retiring as he tired of his reputation as serial womaniser and Jack the Joker.
"I thought about it for a long time," he says. "But I would never announce it, I would just do it. I thought about all the reasons why I didn't want to work any more.
"Then I'd sit down and have a chat with myself and something would come up to keep me interested.
"There was a time, probably after making Batman, that I felt I was foolin' around too much - maybe making movies which didn't have a heart. So I decided on a different course.
"I'd done some good work and worked with great people, so this 'Joker' thing was an irritation, as if everywhere I went I should turn up with a stupid look on my face.
"I don't have to make money - that's not a problem for me any more, I'm glad to say. I could have walked away 10 years ago if I had wanted to. "But what I have now is freedom - which is far more valuable to me in my line of work.
"When I feel the public have seen enough of me or that drive isn't there any more, I just take a year off and do my own thing." It's clear that fatherhood is something Jack's deadly serious about.
Now he has attained iconic status, and come to terms with his womanising, he sees his family as the most important thing in his life. And he is happy that relations with Broussard have thawed.
"I like to take time out with the children," he says. "I have a daughter and son I idolise and want to see as much of them as I can. I hope they enjoy my company.
"But I am always there for them - no matter what anybody else says. They count. Family always counts.
"You know, you get portrayed as this selfish person who disturbs people's lives. Or you are uncaring. Most of thosewho matter most to me know the truth."
Age may have withered him somewhat but he finds it amusing how the public now react to him when he's out and about. Laughing, he says: "It always used to be that people would see me and it would make their day.
"But in one store I had a couple stop me and ask: 'How long have you been a Jack Nicholson lookalike? How much do they pay you?' "Another guy said: 'You look like somebody I've known for a long time... but you are much shorter.'
When I told one girl that I was Jack Nicholson she just laughed at me.
There was no way I could convince her that it was really me! It was also weird being on the road. Other drivers do a double- take, especially lorry drivers. You could see them almost swerving off the road."
Ironically, it's not Jack who gets up to his old tricks in his latest film, About Schmidt. He plays a recently retired insurance salesman who attracts the attentions of divorcee Kathy Bates.
In a highly memorable scene, the fearless and rather rotund actress climbs stark naked into a hot tub with him.
Taking another long puff on his cigarette, Jack grins as he admits he was put in the shade by the formidable Misery star. "She is a plucky lady. That scene was her idea," he grins. "Iam far too bashful at this time of my life to remove my clothes in the company of a lady.
"But she was making fun of me, saying: 'Come on, you don't need to wear those boxer shorts. I won't look, I promise.'
I had to hold my nerve, I'm telling you. You don't want to argue with Kathy Bates!"
Jack won Oscars for One Flew Over The Cuckoo'sNest, As Good As It Gets and Terms Of Endearment. He also rates Easy Rider and Goin' South as landmarks in his amazing career.
But the bottom line, appropriately, is Jack's extraordinary reputation alongside Beatty as the man who once mesmerised women on sight.
He is "pretty certain" he'll never marry again and still hopes to be working regularly in five years' time.
"One thing is certain," he grins, that line of white teeth flashing. "I shall never be remembered as an angel. "But then, wouldn't that be dull?"
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