The six years that made Jack Nicholson an acting great
It goes without saying that Jack Nicholson is one of the greatest actors in history, but it’s easy to say it with the benefit of hindsight. During the early years of his career, he was viewed as a talent of almost unlimited potential, but he still had to prove it.
He made his big screen debut in 1958’s The Cry Baby Killer, but it would be another decade before the rest of Hollywood was forced to sit up and take notice. That breakthrough performance came in the counterculture classic Easy Rider, opening the door for the 1970s to become his for the taking.
That’s exactly what happened, too, with Nicholson emerging as perhaps the single most versatile and consistently capable mainstream leading man the industry had at its disposal, which was an achievement in itself considering the decade also boasted Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and several other future all-timers who all began emerging at around the same time.
Between 1970 and 1975, Nicholson appeared in a whopping 12 features, but the quality more often than not matched the quantity, and it definitely did as it related strictly to his performances. In each one of those years, the star delivered a top-tier turn that continued enhancing his reputation in the eyes of peers, colleagues, contemporaries, and audiences alike, to the point where he was on top of the world by the end of the run.
Five Easy Pieces nabbed him the first Academy Award nomination of his career in the ‘Best Actor’ category, where he blew everyone else clear off the screen as pianist-turned-oil worker Bobby Dupea. Displaying the trademark intensity and barely-repressed mania that would soon become hallmarks of his work, it was far and away his highlight of 1970.
1972’s The King of Marvin Gardens showcased another side of Nicholson as a performer, where he dialled down his exuberance for an introspective turn in a family drama following two estranged brothers dealing with freezing cold temperatures and piping-hot tensions. The following year’s The Last Detail injected more comedic stylings into his work without sacrificing the wild-eyed grit he was becoming increasingly famous for before 1975’s Chinatown saw him deliver not just one of the best performances of the 1970s but arguably one of the very best ever seen in cinema.
It’s hard to see where J.J. Gittes ends and Nicholson begins, with Roman Polanski’s direction and Robert Towne’s seminal screenplay proving the perfect conduits for the star to wrap his mind, body, and mouth around a character injected with so many shades of grey he might as well be monochromatic. And still, he was nowhere near done with his incredible hot streak.
The year after Chinatown, Nicholson gave two wildly different performances in two completely opposing stories, and excelled in both. Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger was a huge learning experience, even if it ended on a sour note when Nicholson acquired the rights to the film and then prevented it from being made available in cinemas or on home video for 30 years, but he was as excellent as ever.
Meanwhile, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest finally won him that first Oscar, in what easily ranks as another of the elite-level marriages of actor and character. The fact Chinatown and Miloš Forman’s psychological drama were released just 17 months apart boggles the mind, if only for Nicholson somehow conspiring to give a pair of performances the medium will never forget within such a short period of time.
For those keeping count, between 1970 and 1975, Nicholson made 12 movies, at least three of which are inarguable classics, while on a personal note he secured one Oscar win from four nominations, two victories at the Baftas, two Golden Globes from five nods, and a National Board of Review award for ‘Best Actor’. That’s the sort of run that can define a career, but in this case, he did it in six years.