When I drove down the narrow private lane leading to Jack Nicholson’s storied lair high atop Mulholland Drive in Beverly Hills 23 years ago, I was more nervous about logistics than meeting the legend himself.
The story was slated for the cover of the New York Times’ Arts & Leisure section, and I knew I needed at least an hour or two to get a decent interview. But publicists for such big stars — and often the stars themselves — can be capricious and often cut you off and kick you out after half an hour or less.
I had reason to worry.
At that time in 2002, Nicholson, a three-time Oscar winner, was 65. But he was still near the peak of his powers and had the scandalous reputation — not to mention the many high-profile romances, with everyone from Michelle Phillips to Anjelica Huston to Lara Flynn Boyle — to go along with it.
During his lengthy heyday, Nicholson made headlines for smashing a stranger’s car windshield with a golf club in a fit of road rage. (He later apologized and settled out of court.)
In 2000, he was sued by a prostitute who claimed he beat her badly after he hired her and a friend to come to his Mulholland Drive home for sex.
That era feels far away now, looking at photos of Nicholson, 88, shuffling outside the Carlyle Hotel with a cane in February. Or when he was seen leaning on assistants for help walking, he made a rare public appearance on this year’s 50th anniversary special of “Saturday Night Live.”
“He doesn’t like to be seen much in public now,” an industry insider with ties to “SNL” told The Post. “I saw him at the Carlyle, and he was a little wobbly. Part of his appeal in the past was his extravagant character and lifestyle. But that all catches up with you after a while.
“I think Jack and his inner circle prefer that you remember him as he was.”
When I met him, Nicholson was considered one of the godfathers of Hollywood — holding court, literally, for decades at his beloved LA Lakers games.
He has been one of the biggest movie stars of his era, but also an eccentric, scene-stealing character actor with a resume of unforgettable roles in films such as “Easy Rider,” “Chinatown,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “The Shining,” “Terms of Endearment,” “Batman,” A Few Good Men,” “Something’s Gotta Give,” “About Schmidt” and “The Departed” — to name, truly, just a few.
Nicholson — who was born in Neptune City, NJ, and famously didn’t learn until he was 20 that his showgirl sister was actually his mother — hasn’t made a movie since the limp 2010 rom-com “How Do You Know,” directed by James Brooks and co-starring Reese Witherspoon and Paul Rudd.
He’s been called a “recluse” in recent years. But even way back in 2002, he told me that he preferred to have dinners at home with friends because if he went out in public, he had to act “like the mayor” at any restaurant.
The temperamental womanizing Nicholson of legend was nowhere in evidence when I pulled up outside the fairly modest (by Hollywood superstar standards) home in a cul-de-sac he shared with then-neighbor and close friend Marlon Brando. Warren Beatty was also a neighbor. Nicholson called his address “Bad Boy Hill.”
At the time, he had lived there for 30 years. He still does today.
I was greeted at his front door by a housekeeper who left me seated in a smallish living room with walls covered in priceless masterpieces by Picasso, Bonnard, Dufy, Magritte, and Bacon.
When Jack turned up, his hair was askew, and he wore a loud yellow-and-blue-striped shirt and khaki pants along with orthopedic-looking shoes.
He almost never gave print interviews, he said, because he had no control over what was written, and preferred doing TV, where his words couldn’t be taken out of context.
As he sat down in an armchair, I asked how much time I could have with him.
“Take all the time you want,” he said, and he meant it.
Three hours later, he was still talking about art, acting, politics, books, and everything under the sun —when Adam Sandler showed up and went into another room to wait until we were done.
I was most struck by his admission — one that seemed sincere — that he still gets nervous and anxious the day before starting work on a new film.
In fact, he told me he was so worried about not giving a good performance while making 1997’s “As Good As it Gets,” that he asked director James Brooks, a close friend, if he wanted him to step down and give the part to another actor. (Nicholson ended up winning his third Oscar, his second for Best Actor, for the role of a grumpy novelist involved with Helen Hunt.)
When we spoke, Nicholson was working with Sandler on the 2003 film “Anger Management,” and the two have had a lasting friendship, which is why Nicholson was at the “SNL” anniversary show, where he introduced Sandler.
At the time, Nicholson was dating Lara Flynn Boyle, who was then 32, and I remember seeing her framed photo in a guest bathroom. Though he was well-known as one of Hollywood’s biggest flirts and then some — former girlfriend Anjelica Huston once called him a “world-class philanderer” — the actor was nothing but a gentleman with me.
I remembered the generosity, warmth, and professionalism of the Nicholson I met when I read last month how he had reached out to Huston after she fled her home during January’s devastating LA wildfires. She said he offered his home if she needed a place to stay.
“The phone just rang out of nowhere, and it was him,” Huston said.
“It’s always a comfort when he calls … It was heartbreakingly sweet,” she went on. “I’ve gone back over it several times in my head, and I think next time I’d accept the invitation.”
Huston was the longest relationship of Nicholson’s life. She has publicly admitted that she knew he was unfaithful but stayed anyway. They were together for 17 years — until 1990, when Nicholson fathered a child with actress Rebecca Broussard.
Nicholson, who was married just once, to actress Sandra Knight in 1962, has a total of six children with five different women (but none with Huston).
“I loved him,” Huston told The Guardian in February. “I think in the world that I was living in, [his cheating] wasn’t disrespectful. It was how he was, and it wasn’t so personal. I think as soon as I clocked that, it was alright, I knew how to protect myself. It didn’t make me happy, but I knew what I was doing.”
In contrast to his love life, Nicholson’s career has been consistent, strategic, and mostly drama-free.
“He’ll be seen as this generation’s Humphrey Bogart, but, for my money, he was much more canny about his career than Bogart,” Patrick McGilligan, author of “Jack’s Life: A Biography of Jack Nicholson,” told The Post.
“He went out of his way to work with some of the greatest filmmakers of our era … while, at the same time, doing excellent commercial films. He doesn’t embody the American dream of success onscreen. His characters represent all the flaws and foibles of the American dream.”
Elliot Mintz, an author and longtime publicist to everyone from John Lennon and Yoko Ono to Paris Hilton, first met Nicholson 50 years ago and has known him both personally and professionally since.
“In all my years out here, I can’t think of anyone else currently alive who understands the layout of the Hollywood fame game like Jack,” Mintz, the author of last year’s “We All Shine On: John, Yoko, and Me,” told The Post.
“At the same time, I don’t think he saw himself through the same kind of lens other people saw him. He’s a magnanimous host and has no airs or pretenses of any kind.”
Mintz said he invited him out to an event recently that he thought the star would enjoy, but Nicholson politely declined.
“In our public conversations, he described himself as a ‘singular’ being and lamented his inability to maintain the kind of relationships most of us regard as sacred,” Mintz recalled of some interviews he did with Nicholson when he hosted a radio show in LA.
“He’s been quoted that he will probably live out his years without the experience of a loving relationship. I certainly don’t know if he has someone today, but I think he shares his time primarily with the only person who will not disappoint him — those are the moments that unfold with himself.
“Jack is the real deal.”
