Did Jack Nicholson and James Caan build secret underground tunnels to the Playboy mansion?
As one of the industry’s foremost hellraisers who first shot to stardom during a period when every A-lister seemed to be awash with drugs, booze, and promiscuity, Jack Nicholson was a regular fixture at the Playboy mansion throughout the 1970s.
Of course, his own parties had already become the stuff of legend due to the eye-popping amount of excess, narcotics, and debauchery on display, but the hedonistic headquarters of Hugh Hefner’s empire was still the place to be for Nicholson and many of his cohorts.
What absolutely cannot be denied is that Nicholson spent a lot of time at the Playboy mansion and was typically found doing very Nicholson-esque things. Pamela Anderson revealed she once walked in on the screen icon having a threesome, and in a questionable parenting tactic, his daughter Lorraine admitted that she used to hang out there after school when she was a kid despite the fact it was hardly a family-friendly environment.
The three-time Academy Award winner didn’t live too far from the mansion, nor did James Caan, another contemporary who travelled in many of the same circles. In fact, The Godfather star confessed that he had effectively moved in after his divorce, so he would have been a familiar face around the Los Angeles property.
However, did the pair and fellow legends Kirk Douglas and Warren Beatty have secret underground tunnels that directly connected their homes to the Playboy mansion? On the one hand, it sounds utterly preposterous that a massive construction project would be greenlit to build passageways between the quartet’s houses to one of their favourite haunts. On the other, it’s not exactly far-fetched given the proclivities of three of them, with Douglas happily married to Anne Buydens since 1954.
Playboy claimed they had, suggesting in an article that some images and blueprints had been unearthed detailing four tunnels emanating from the actors’ homes to the mansion. The building’s general manager was even quoted as confirming their existence with the addendum that they “were closed up sometime in 1989.”
Looking at Nicholson and Caan in particular, it’s entirely believable that those two would have commissioned a tunnel that took them from their abode to the Playboy mansion. One, because they spent plenty of time there anyway, and two, because it would enable them to avoid the prying eyes of the paparazzi.
It sounds so unbelievable that it had to be true, right? Sadly, though, it was a hoax. Playboy ultimately confirmed that it was an April Fool’s Day gag, but it must be said that it was comfortably one of the better ones. After all, Nicholson and Caan having tunnels to the mansion they already frequented was hardly out of the realms of possibility, but it turns out they used the front door just like everyone else.
