Why Jack Nicholson thinks Bob Dylan will be “the biggest star in the music business until he dies”
Calling anyone the greatest living anything is a discussion that can open a can of worms and be debated until the small hours, but there’s no point entertaining anyone who wants to talk about cinema’s greatest living actor if they don’t have Jack Nicholson somewhere near the top of the list.
He’s been regarded as one of the best ever to grace the silver screen for decades, and it’s hard to argue. With three Academy Award wins from a dozen nominations, and a catalogue of seminal performances that defined the ‘New Hollywood’ era and beyond, Hollywood hasn’t seen many better than Nicholson.
Even fewer of them are still alive and kicking, and while the veteran has been quietly retired since 2012, his legacy was ensured long before then. Most people who know anything about Nicholson are aware that, as far as acting was concerned, nobody could ever come close to the late, great Marlon Brando.
When it came to music, though, Bob Dylan was miles in front of the competition. He even mentioned them in the same breath, which is saying something, knowing how Nicholson felt about his longtime neighbour and friend, explaining that “in order to succeed, to become a Brando or a Bob Dylan, you can’t just punch a time card, take a nap, and pick up your reviews and your money. Your work is all-consuming.”
He’d been a fan since the 1960s, with one of his friends from acting class, John Herman Shaner, revealing that Nicholson “thought Bob Dylan was the greatest thing that ever happened,” and the musician influenced his professional life as well, particularly after the Easy Rider icon had attended a 1974 concert at Madison Square Garden.
After hearing ‘Forever Young’ live, Nicholson began “wondering just how much anxiety I do feel about growing old,” and since he was an A-lister and a world-famous movie star, he was allowed to indulge himself and bring things full-circle a decade later when he introduced Dylan onstage for a Philadelphia gig, where he called him both “transcendent” and “one of America’s great voices of freedom.”
Needless to say, there was only one person qualified to hand Dylan his lifetime achievement award at the 1991 Grammys, and it was Nicholson. The singer and songwriter has never conformed, never bowed down to industry pressures, and always marched to the beat of his own drum, which was exactly why the Chinatown and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest frontman thought he’d never be bettered.
“The biggest star in the music business, until he dies, is Bob Dylan,” Nicholson announced. “Even though Bobby may not be the biggest commercial artist at the moment, you can never deny the quality of his work, which is always fabulous. Let’s put it this way: stack his albums and they’re that high. That’s a lot of albums. You say, ‘How’s the album, Bob?’ And he says, ‘It’s all original songs and all good musicians.'”
He’s been one of the biggest stars in music for 60 years, but as far as Nicholson can see, Dylan occupies the top spot all by himself, and he’ll continue to do so until he shuffles off his mortal coil.
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