Five times Jack Nicholson outdid himself as Hollywood’s ultimate hell-raiser
Jack Nicholson is undoubtedly one of the greatest actors of all time. There was a period, though, when he also seemed to be hellbent on securing another crown in Hollywood – that of the industry’s ultimate hell-raiser. Indeed, the stories of Nicholson’s various excesses have become the stuff of legend.
From parties at his Hollywood mansion, which would go on for days, to a history of womanising that would boggle the mind – not to mention a truly Herculean drug intake – Nicholson was always a man determined to live life to the full while he had the opportunity.
To illustrate our point more fully, Nicholson lived for many years on Hollywood’s iconic Mulholland Drive. His next-door neighbours were Marlon Brando and Warren Beatty, who also lived close by. The area became so notorious for sex-fuelled parties and drunken excess that it gained the nickname “Bad Boy Drive”.
Naturally, Nicholson has slowed down in his later years and is almost a recluse these days. He has also admitted over the years that his lifestyle wasn’t always conducive to healthy relationships, and it hurt family members and lovers. Despite this, the stories of his heyday are still hugely compelling, so here are the five times Nicholson outdid himself with his hell-raising antics.
Five hell-raising antics by Jack Nicholson:
When he went nude for three months to combat body image issues
Let’s start with a great example of Nicholson being a charmingly eccentric hell-raiser. You know, before we get to the nearly endless tales of drug-fuelled debauchery. Fear not, though – those are on the way.
When Nicholson first burst onto the Hollywood scene, he was a wiry mischief-maker with a twinkle in his eye and a receding hairline. Over the years, that twinkled remained, but that hairline got further and further back. On top of that, he put on a lot of weight as he got older, which is perfectly natural – but it left him with some insecurities about his body. Thankfully, Nicholson knew just what to do in order to get back in touch with his body. In 2006, he told Rolling Stone that he simply began walking around the house naked at all times. This lasted for three months, and his daughter was understandably horrified.
Nicholson explained, “I felt it was totally necessary. I’m self-conscious about body image. I don’t have a great body shot. And it was an era of ‘Let’s get free.’ I know it drove my oldest daughter insane. I just wanted to be more relaxed within my skin.” Unfortunately, his experiment wasn’t entirely successful – but you have to give the man points for ingenuity.
When he offered cocaine to a member of the Royal Family
In 1979, famed talent agent Sue Mengers threw a glitzy bash in the Hollywood hills, which was attended by Hollywood royalty – including the notoriously hard-partying Nicholson. Amazingly, though, genuine royalty was also at the party, and Nicholson soon found himself face-to-face with Princess Margaret.
Instead of bowing to the royal and showing the customary deference, though, Nicholson did what he would usually do when he met a pretty gal at a party. That’s right – he allegedly offered Queen Elizabeth II’s sister a bump of cocaine. He explained that it would help them get to know each other better, but the royal politely declined. Everyone probably had a good laugh about it, too. Well, all except Mengers, who was reportedly furious because she’d been angling for an invite to Buckingham Palace. Whoops.
When he put cocaine on “Little Jack” to enhance his sex life
The parties thrown at Nicholson’s Hollywood mansion were things of legend in the industry. One of the unique things about them, though, was that Nicholson supposedly had certain rules that had to be adhered to when it came to his drugs. He had two types of narcotics available to party guests: upstairs and downstairs. It was pretty simple – the downstairs batches were for regular guests, while the upstairs ones were for the VIPs like Nicholson’s close pals and his many, many conquests.
Indeed, if you were one of those conquests, it’s possible you experienced a trick Nicholson reportedly learned from iconic Old Hollywood star Errol Flynn. In a biography about the equally hard-partying John Belushi, writer Marc Eliot claimed that Belushi’s associate Nicholson kept a steady supply of cocaine in his bedroom for one specific purpose.
Eliot wrote, “By following what he’d heard about Errol Flynn, he learned that by putting a dab on the tip of his manhood, he could last longer, and, because of the way women reacted to that, he also believed it intensified the sensations for them.”
When he introduced Dallas’ Larry Hagman to the joys of weed
In his younger days, Nicholson was by no means monogamous when it came to drugs. In fact, he loved marijuana almost as much as he loved cocaine. He reportedly chain-smoked joints like they were going out of fashion while shooting The Last Detail, while he, Dennis Hopper, and Peter Fonda were all stoned out of their minds while they shot portions of Easy Rider.
Smoking pot was always a much more relaxing experience than drinking alcohol – although Nicholson did his fair share of that, too. Therefore, when he was in Mexico in 1964 shooting Ensign Pulver with future JR Ewing actor Larry Hagman and noticed the guy couldn’t stop getting hammered at lunch, he had a bright idea. He simply introduced Hagman to the chilled-out wonders of weed, and Hagman’s daughter revealed the psychoactive herb became one of her father’s lifelong love affairs.
When he took mescaline while white water rafting
Nicholson wasn’t a man who limited his drug-taking to parties and multimillion-dollar movie sets. No, sir – he also took them in the great outdoors. In 1980, a 43-year-old Nicholson decided that he needed to up the ante while hurtling downriver on a rafting trip. He told People: “I had a little flavour of the season – peach mescaline – but it was not like the hallucinatory state of the ’60s. This was just kind of sunny.”
Interestingly, Nicholson has always been quick to make sure people don’t think he is bragging when he talks about his drug-taking. He also never wanted people to think he was encouraging them to do what he did. He assured the interviewer: “I don’t advocate anything for anybody. But I choose always to be candid because I don’t like the closet atmosphere of drugging. In other words, it ain’t no big thing. You can wreck yourself with it, but Christ, you can wreck yourself with anything.”
Hell, Nicholson even admitted that he never hid his recreational activities from his daughter, who was fully aware of what was going on. However, he smiled, “She doesn’t do any drugs. She’s a vegetarian!”
