He has earned his Jack the Lad reputation with the sexy legend that he's built. In other stars it might have shaky foundations but somehow, amazingly, he has been able to float above criticism and America 's politically correct lobby. His talent, his rarefied celebrity, has guarded him from being branded sleazy. Any doubts about scandal involving unseemly and dangerous liaisons he has effortlessly avoided with his irresistible charm. His image is of Jolly Jack the Pirate, the Hollywood buccaneer always ready to run up the Skull and Crossbones at pomposity. He supports it with:' I believe in living life to the hilt. I'm not afraid of my own imagination -- or anybody else's. I lead by following, you know? What I know, I know. What I don't, I don't. ‘Love is at the heart of life. Love a woman, love a child, love a country -- it fills your life.' His has been overflowing from the beginning when he was born on April 22, 1937 , in Neptune , New Jersey , the illegitimate child of 17-year-old June Nicholson. He grew up thinking she was his older sister and that her mother Ethel May -- his grandmother -- was his mother. It was only after their deaths that he learned the truth from a magazine article:' It was in 1975 soon after June died. I was making ‘'The Fortune'' for Mike Nichols and someone called me on the ‘phone and told me. Ultimately I got official verification from June's sister Lorraine . I was stunned.' The discovery made him a staunch opponent of abortion:' I don't have the right to any other view. My only emotion is gratitude, literally, for my life. If June and Ethel May had been of less character I would never have gotten to live. These women gave me the gift of life. As an illegitimate child born during the Depression to a broken lower-middle-class family you're an automatic abortion with most people today. They were strong women;they all had a great deal of style and they were a lot of fun.' Nicholson credits his ‘sisters' June and Lorraine and ‘mother' Ethel May with creating the man he is:'The neighbourhood idolised them.I'm very fortunate to have had that very unusual environment to grow up in. ‘Because of them my basic model for women is an independent woman. I prefer the company of women and I have deep respect for them. I always tell me there are three rules: they hate us, we hate them; they're stronger, they're smarter; and, most important, they don't play fair. ‘They trained me great, those ladies. It mapped out the way I would live my life. It's what I'm all about. In whatever I do I like to feel I've got a little gamble going. It's why I'm a sports fanatic. You gotta remember my line of work. Sports is the only place I can go and not know how it's going to end.' His life has been as unconventional as his upbringing. Hollywood studio boss Mark Canton calls him ‘the hippest man in America' and Nicholson with his trademark black Ray-bans, designer gear and the Killer Smile --the nippy, sparkling teeth flashingly alive -- publicly plays to the image. |
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