As Hollywood legend Jack Nicholson retires from movies and shuns parties, we reveal the wild past of The Shining star who boasted of 2,000 lovers and even tried to seduce Jennifer Lawrence in 2013
Tinseltown's most iconic playboy has swapped drug-fuelled parties for early nights
IT’S 1pm and Hollywood megastar Jack Nicholson rolls out of bed and shuffles downstairs in a grubby dressing gown to get a glass of milk.
This dishevelled start to his day is not the result of a night of hard partying, for which he is legendary.
Instead, insiders say, it is a daily feature of the dull routine into which the increasingly reclusive and curmudgeonly actor has settled in his twilight years.
Could this be the same swashbuckler who boasted of bedding 2,000 women and hosted round-the-clock, drug-fuelled parties at his Mulholland Drive mansion?
Jack, 80 in April, now paints as a hobby and the many hours he spends in bed are devoted to napping, rather than in the company of beautiful women.
Long gone are the days when he was Hollywood’s most magnetic playboy, regularly seen carousing LA hotspots with his A-list pals.
Red carpet appearances are a thing of the past too.
Just seeing The Shining star out of the house is rare enough, and when he does go out photos have shown him looking increasingly weathered and overweight.
It is a far cry from his Seventies heyday when he raised hell with Warren Beatty who lived nearby and his next-door neighbour Marlon Brando — another hunk who became a bloated recluse.
Little wonder the road at one time was nicknamed “Bad Boy Drive” because of the trio.
This week we told how his Easy Rider co-star and long-standing pal Peter Fonda had revealed Jack’s retirement from acting.
It was no great surprise. The man who dazzled in 1975’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest has not made a film since 2010’s box office flop How Do You Know.
His only other role since turning 70 was 2007’s The Bucket List and he has no work in production.
A film insider told The Sun: “It’s become the No1 mission for so many actors and studio heads to lure Jack out of retirement.
“Robert Downey Jr wanted him to play his dad in The Judge but Robert Duvall took the role. They held off filming for months hoping Jack would change his mind.
“The latest person to try is Quentin Tarantino. To no avail.”
Jack, who reportedly weighs more than 20st, has also been dogged by rumours of ill health.
It has been claimed he has Alzheimer’s. Three years ago he denied reports of a forced retirement because he couldn’t remember his lines. Jack said he had a “mathematician’s brain” and any slowdown was a result of growing tired of the Hollywood rat race.
The most Oscar-nominated male actor of all time (he was up for 12 and won three) added: “I’m not going to work until the day I die, that’s not why I started this.
“I’m not driven. I was driven — but I’m not, I don’t have to be out there any more.
“In fact, there’s part of me that never really liked being out there. You get older, you change.”
Friends say he most treasures evenings alone with a book or looking over his vast art collection.
Outside a circle of largely male friends Jack rarely entertains at home. And no wonder — his once notorious bachelor pad is now apparently rather grotty.
One visitor claimed it smelled of mould, with threadbare carpets, scuffed walls, dirty dishes and cigarette burns in the furniture — although there was an unframed Picasso propped against a wall.
A pal said: “He has a housekeeper but there are personal areas she can’t go into. He smokes a lot so the house stinks of stale cigars, cigarettes and weed.”
The only woman around is ex- belly dancer Helena Kallianiotes, 78. She starred with him in 1970’s Five Easy Pieces, moved into his guest house and never left.
These days Jack also employs a cook, after saying: “I got tired of going out to dinner.”
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Once an avid golfer, his appearances on the course are now rare. Insiders say that old pal Warren Beatty, 79, and his wife Annette Bening, 58, were so worried about Jack’s health they recently signed him up for lessons.
Jack also remains close to actor Danny DeVito, 72, with whom he grew up in working-class New Jersey, veteran music producer Lou Adler, 83, actors Sean Penn, 56, and Harry Dean Stanton, 90. During their hellraising days Harry was famous for organising wild orgies attended by Jack.
Recently Harry said: “Nowadays Jack paints. I saw some of it a few years ago. It’s nice. He enjoys it. I imagine it’s relaxing for him.”
Another of Nicholson’s old pastimes was cheering on the LA Lakers basketball team. Once a regular fixture at games, he now goes rarely. The last time was in November, with his 24-year-old son Ray, also an actor.
Jack’s children are the most successful at drawing him out into the world.
His daughter Lorraine, 26, has coaxed him to an art show and a meal at trendy LA restaurant Mr Chow. The mother of both Lorraine and Ray was actress Rebecca Broussard — Jack’s affair with her destroyed his long-term relationship with Anjelica Huston.
He also fathered Honey Hollman, 35, daughter of Danish beauty queen Winnie Hollman, while he was with Houston.
Although Honey, 35, grew up in Copenhagen, she said her dad had never been a stranger.
He is also very close to his eldest daughter Jennifer, born to actress Sandra Knight — the only woman he married.
Jennifer, 43, a fashion designer and mother-of-three, grew up in Hawaii with her mum but often went to Los Angeles as a teenager to see her dad. Ever the responsible father, Jack took her partying in the Bel-Air Hotel and the Playboy Mansion and had his affair with Broussard — who at the time was the same age as Jennifer and one of his daughter’s good friends.
Actress Susan Anspach, 74, has long claimed Jack fathered her son Caleb Goddard, 45, but he never publically acknowledged the fact.
Despite his hands-off approach to parenting, Jack has said: “Children give your life a resonance that it can’t have without them. As a father . . . I give unconditional love.”
An insider told The Sun: “Jack’s not the party-loving womaniser he used to be. He just prefers a select few in his inner sanctum now.
“His kids are his priority and he enjoys hanging out with them. He has a rock-solid relationship with all of his children, but apart from his daughters the only woman he welcomes past his front door is Annette Bening.”
Jack has dated some of the world’s most desirable women, including Kim Basinger, Candice Bergen and Marie Helvin — but his wild reputation eventually caught up with him.
Once a flash of that devastating smile could charm a woman into bed. But at the 2013 Oscars, when he tried to seduce Jennifer Lawrence, then 22, that power had vanished.
He interrupted a live interview she was giving to suggest she could be his new girlfriend.
The shot of Jennifer holding her head in her hands and telling Jack he was “being really rude” went viral and made him a laughing stock.
That same year Jack declared: “I would love that one last romance but I’m not very realistic about it happening. What I can’t deny is my yearning.
“I’ve had everything a man could ask for but no one could say I’m successful with affairs of the heart.
“There were points in my life when I felt oddly irresistible to women.
“I’m not in that state right now, which makes me sad.”