My all-time favorite actor is Jack Nicholson. I don’t think I’ll ever forget my first viewing of “The Shining” or the subsequent sleepless nights.
Nicholson’s performance kept me glued to the screen and made me realize the real impact an actor or actress can have in a role.
Nicholson, an incredible 81 years old, can reflect on a remarkable and adventurous career at the top of Hollywood.
His peculiar brows and deep growl have helped him portray various insane characters, including roles in “The Shining” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
Throughout a more than 50-year career, he has worked with some of the greatest actors and actresses ever.
If not, you should keep reading. But did you know that his family had been hiding something from him for a long time—something that could only be found by accident?
John Joseph Nicholson was born on April 22, 1937, in New York. The young boy would grow up in New Jersey with his businesswoman grandmother Ethel Nicholson, who worked in the beauty business.
Jack thought his grandmother was his biological mother because his alcoholic father left the family when Nicholson was still a child.
His 19-year-old sister June left her job as a dancer to follow her dream of becoming an actress. Jack followed suit when he was only 17 years old and went to Los Angeles.
Nicholson’s grandmother Ethel passed away seven years after June, who passed away from cancer in 1963.
Jack worked hard to achieve his objectives despite his less-than-ideal beginning in life. He persevered in working toward his acting dreams, and success eventually found him.
But he received a call from a journalist who had profiled him for the movie “Chinatown” when he was 37.
Everything could have changed as a result of the phone call.
Jack had misidentified his grandparents as his parents, a family secret the reporter had learned about during his research in 1974 and would later disclose to Jack himself.
Aside from that, June, his “sister,” had been his natural mother.
Initially offended by the claims, the aspiring Hollywood star rejected them. But Jack’s aunt Lorraine, his second “sister,” confirmed the family’s secret in a tearful phone call.
In response to the realization, Jack said, “The incident was rather spectacular, but I wouldn’t characterize it as traumatic…I was quite well formed psychologically”.
June’s parents decided to raise Jack as their own because she gave birth to him while she was 18 and single. It was decided that June would pose as his elder sister.
Nicholson’s biological father’s identity has never been determined as of this writing.
There has been a lot of speculation that the father might have been June’s manager, despite other sources claiming June was unaware of his identity.
We can understand how it would be shocking to grow up being fed such a massive lie. Both Ethel and June had taken the information with them to the grave.
But Jack doesn’t harbor any grudges against them.
Despite this long-standing family secret, Jack has become one of history’s most well-known and prosperous actors.
He doesn’t blame his family for the information they kept from him, which is character-defining because it shows a rare insight.
