“I loved him to death”: the actor and director Jack Nicholson called a father figure
Based on the early years of his career, it would make sense for the legendary Roger Corman to be singled out by Jack Nicholson as one of the most formative father figures he encountered in cinema, but that didn’t turn out to be the case.
Not that the three-time Academy Award winner didn’t view the prolific producer as being integral to his rise up the Hollywood ranks, especially when they were basically joined at the hip during the first decade of what would eventually become a legendary career.
Corman produced Nicholson’s screen debut The Cry Baby Killer, tasked him to pen the screenplay for drug-addled Easy Rider precursor The Trip, and directed him in The Little Shop of Horrors, The Raven, The Terror, and The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, so it goes without saying he couldn’t have been more instrumental in putting the future superstar on the map.
However, the icon Nicholson named as being akin to a father figure occupied that territory on both a personal and professional level. John Huston played Noah Cross in Roman Polanski’s Oscar-winning classic Chinatown, directed the actor in Oscar-winning crime caper Prizzi’s Honor, and could have realistically ended up as his father-in-law had Nicholson, and Huston’s daughter Anjelica ended up tying the not during their 17-year relationship.
During an interview with MTV, Nicholson was found reflecting on Huston’s “tremendous” performance and even shared an anecdote about how closely art was imitating life. In Chinatown, the leading man’s Jake Gittes gets involved with Faye Dunaway’s Evelyn Cross-Mulwray, which wasn’t lost on the man romancing his scene partner’s real-life daughter.
“I remember Anjelica walking up when John and I were rehearsing the scene where we talk about my character’s involvement with his character’s daughter,” he said. “I’ll never forget that particular moment of synchronicity. It was one of the great privileges of my life to be around John Huston. He was, of course, a father figure to me. I loved him to death.”
He was basically part of the family at that point and continued to be for more than a decade to come, with Huston’s daughter and his real-life paramour starring alongside Nicholson in Prizzi’s Honor, as well as Elia Kazan’s The Last Tycoon, and Sean Penn’s second feature as a director The Crossing Guard.
Nicholson worked with many of Hollywood’s most legendary names during his equally illustrious stint in front of the bright lights, and Huston followed in the footsteps of Corman by becoming one of the mentors he held dearest. They even co-starred in one of the greatest movies ever made, which wasn’t a bad way for them to make their professional introductions to each other outside of their connection when the cameras weren’t rolling.
