It's All About Jac Nicholson

I dedicate this story to Amanda, a fan of Jack Nicholson and a fan of Bostonfictionwriter. She asked me to write a story about Jack Nicholson with her in the starring role.

I agreed to write the story because I've always been a fan of Jack Nicholson's, too. Normally, as you can discern from my name, Bostonfictionwriter, I only write fiction, generally fiction about Boston, Massachusetts. Only, this time, I decided to sway a bit from fiction and from Boston to write the true story of my meeting with Jack Nicholson in Los Angeles, California, only reverting from non-fiction to fiction by changing the character of Jana, Marty Scorsese's real script assistant with Amanda's name and description.

*

Jack Nicholson's last starring role, the end of an era.

Positioned at the end of a long corridor, we watched him from a distance appear, push the elevator button, and then disappear inside the elevator before we could reach him. Seeing him was surreal. At first I didn't recognize him and then, when I knew it was him, I was star struck. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was really him. He was there and then he was gone. It all happened so quickly.

"Hey Jack! Jack! Wait up. Hold the elevator," yelled Marty while laughing and picking up his pace with the two of us, me and his script assistant, Amanda, lagging behind like puppies following their pack leader. "Jack! Wait," he said waving a hand after him when he had already disappeared inside the elevator.

I controlled my impulse to run to the elevator and ask him for his autograph. I didn't want to be like every other pain-in-the-ass star struck fan and I knew that I wouldn't score any points with him by acting that way. I needed to play it cool, but I knew that attitude would be impossible, once I met him.

I looked at Marty's script assistant and smiled and she looked at me and giggled. Even though she was very pretty, there were more important things on my mind than flirting with a pretty woman. We both knew it was going to be a special day, a day we could treasure for the rest of our lives. I knew I'd be talking about this day to my friends and family for years to come. We were both ecstatic with the thoughts of meeting Jack Nicholson. We had talked about it on the drive over with Marty Scorsese with him filling in treasured tidbits of what Jack is really like off camera.

"Jack? He's the same off screen as he is on screen. Quick witted, funny, personable, but irreverent, there's no difference with him when he's playing a role or playing a round of golf. What you see is what you get. He has no off switch from his intensity. He's always on and he'll be like that until the day he dies," said Marty. "I hope he has a lot more movies to make," he said turning to look out the window of the limo and suddenly growing pensive in thought. "Only, I have a foreboding feeling that this is his last film."

Why did he say that? He caught me completely by surprise with his insightful confession. His words sent chills down my spine. I couldn't imagine life without a new Jack Nicholson movie. Did he know something that no one else knew or was it just a psychic moment?

"Why do you say that, Mr. Scorsese?"

"Marty, please call me Marty. Everyone calls me Marty."

"Why do you say that this may be his last movie, Marty?"

"Oh, I don't know, it's just a feeling that I have," he turned to me and gave me a half smile. "We can't live forever and we're all old men and he is 71-years-old you know and is not in the best of health. He doesn't take care of himself the way he should. He smokes, he drinks, he eats too much, he still chases women, and he doesn't get enough sleep. He is a worrier, too, and worrying about everything is what will kill you. He worries too much about things that he can't change and he will never change, never. He's a shooting star and he'll go out that way rather than to be extinguished and forgotten. Besides, he's never been the same since he lost his mentor."

"His mentor? Who was his mentor?"

"Marlon Brando. If you want to score points with Jack," said Marty with a laugh. "Tell him how you loved the work of Marlon Brando. He'll talk your ear off about how the talent of Brando was ill appreciated by the mass of moviegoers. He'll tell you how the man was misunderstood and never understood by those in the business and by those not in the business. He loved him."

"Well, I am a fan of Brando, especially his work in the Godfather movies. Actually, I've been a fan of Brando since I was a kid. I remember being so excited when Francis Ford Coppola was making the first Godfather movie and how it was talked about in the newspapers that Brando would play the part of Don Corleone."

"Did you know that Jack's name was mentioned when casting for Michael's role in the Godfather movie?"

"No, kidding. I didn't know that."

"In addition to winning more awards than nearly every actor in the history of Hollywood, he's been considered for more movies that other actors make. Socerer, Annie, Space Cowboys, Angel Heart, Misery, In the Line of Fire, Hoosiers, Three Kings, Straw Dogs, The Silence of the Lambs, The Mosquito Coast, The Exorcist, Coming Home, One Hour Photo, Bad Santa, Nixon, Caliglia, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and The Sting, he's either been considered or turned them down for one reason or another. I don't know of another actor so honored with so many offers. He's offered roles all the time.

"Well, as far as Marlon Brando goes, I can't tell you how many times I watched A Street Car Named Desire, The Wild One, and On The Waterfront on our small black and white TV with my parents when I was a kid. My folks loved him." I had the urge to scream out, "Stella!" but I controlled myself from doing so within the small confines of a limousine.

"Well, to him, Brando was the best actor who ever recited a line. They even lived next door on Mulholland Drive for years, nicknamed Bad Boy Drive because of who lived there, Jack, Warren Beatty, and Brando, until Brando died and when he did, Jack bought his house and leveled it to include the property with his. I suspect that he didn't want Marlon's property purchased by someone who didn't appreciate who had lived there."

Marty gave me a look, as if he was reading me, and as only an experienced director could. Their genius is insight into movie scripts and people. They see things that the rest of us don't see and imagine things that the rest of us can't imagine which is how they are able to get the best out of the talent of their actors. It was almost as much of a thrill meeting Martin Scorsese as it was for me to meet Jack Nicholson.

There are so many Martin Scorsese's films that I have seen that I loved, The Departed, The Aviator, Gangs of New York, Casino, The Age of Innocence, Cape Fear, Goodfellas, The Color of Money, The King of Comedy, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, Alice Doesn't Live Here Any More, and so many others. Here was a man with credits as long as Jack Nicholson's taking time out of his busy day to meet with me over my movie script. I couldn't believe it. I was on Cloud 9. This was my golden opportunity to break into the big time.

There is nothing like the feeling when people who love movies, as much as do Marty Scorsese, Jack Nicholson, and I get together in a room to discuss movies. I couldn't wait to sit around and just talk about past movies, present movies, about making movies, about acting in movies, and to hear those treasured insights that Marty and Jack could share with me.

"He hides behind his celebrity, as we all do, but his persona is easily scratched, especially when his persona is not a persona but the real him. Everything with Jack is on the surface. Everything with Jack is immediate and now. Sensitive, immature, and insecure, he's like a child in those regards, which is why you'll never see Jack on a talk show. He's too vulnerable to be exposed like that and he doesn't need that kind of exposure and/or scandal should he respond in an inappropriate way to the wrong question, which undoubtedly, he would. Yet, we all know that about him and we all help to protect him and his image, especially his best friend, Danny DeVito, those two are close, real close. They'd do anything for one another."

"A lot of professional athletes are like that," I said. "Especially the big stars who think that they can do no wrong. They think that the laws that apply to the rest of us don't apply to them. They've been revered since high school and the special privileges that everyone around them has afforded them since their unique athletic talent was discovered would change even the strongest person for the worse."

"Yes, too many professional athletes are spoiled rotten, which may account for why Jack spends so much time at Lakers and Yankees games and why he loves professional wrestling and professional wrestlers, as much as he does. They understand one another and he feels comfortable carousing with the professional players who are just as immature and specially treated as he is. Only the careers of professional athletes, unless they get into announcing or the movies, as O. J. Simpson did, is short lived. Their careers don't span 50 years. Jack hasn't lived in the real world since he's been an adult," he said with a laugh. "He hasn't matured past young adult since he was a messenger boy at MGM back in the mid fifties. Unfortunately, Hollywood has taken a toll on him by stunting his emotional growth and maturity."

"I didn't know all that about him. I didn't even know he was a messenger boy. I had no idea. We all are too busy looking at his acting in present movies to see how he paid his dues in the past to earn such respect. Wow, that's so interesting."

"Yeah, his office boy career was short lived when he got his first acting role in the late fifties. He got to meet many of the big stars back then at a time when talent was more important than media hype and that got him hooked."

"What about you, Amanda? You have that star struck look in your eyes anticipating meeting Jack," he said focusing his attention to his young, pretty assistant and laughing. "A look, I might add, that you never had when meeting me," he said with another laugh.

"Don't kid yourself, Marty," she said with a blush. "I'm still in Heaven working with you every day. I count my lucky stars when I interviewed for this job and got it. I still can't believe it. I appreciate everything you've done for me. You are without doubt the most generous—"

Obviously embarrassed by her kind comments, Marty raised a hand by Amanda's sudden confession and to stop her from continuing.

"So, again, I pose the question to you, Amanda," said Marty. "What attracts you, a young woman in her twenties, to a man like Jack, who is in his seventies? I've always wondered about that. He's never without a young woman on his arm."

"I don't know about the other women, but I can tell you what attracts me to Jack. He's older for starters," she said with a smile. "He's a bad boy but he has a good heart, that's obvious and I can clearly read that in him. And he seems pretty powerful. I don't mean physically. Not like he'd rough me up but maybe he'd threaten me and I like being made to feel submissive with my lover and relinquishing my control to him," she said turning a bright red, as soon as she said it. "I can't believe I said all that. I can't believe I revealed so much of myself to you two like that," she said averting her eyes from our stares. "I guess the excitement of meeting Jack Nicholson overwhelmed me," she said fanning herself with pages of my script. "I'm so embarrassed."

"Save the embarrassment for when you meet Jack," said Marty reaching out to pat her knee. "Without a doubt, he'll surely do something or say something to embarrass you more than you've ever been embarrassed before," he said with a laugh. "That's just how he is," said Marty with a shrug of his shoulders.

The limo pulled up to the building where we were to have our meeting and we all got out of the car and walked inside. Thank God for air conditioning. Going from the air conditioned car to the air conditioned building, it was unbearably hot this time of year in Los Angeles and the early morning smog didn't help the air quality either.

Just when we thought we were too late and would keep everyone waiting, especially Jack, just when we thought the elevator door would close and we'd be further delayed and tardier for the meeting than we already were, Jack stuck his head out the elevator door waving for us to hurry.

I couldn't believe it. There he was, Jack Nicholson in the flesh. He was looking at us. He was looking at me. He was holding the elevator door open for us and he was smiling. My hands were shaking, my pulse was racing, and my heart was pounding. I was so nervous that I couldn't stop smiling. I must have looked like an idiot. Yeah, sure, I had met a few celebrities in my life, but nothing like this, nothing so up close and personal and not such a big star as he obviously was.

In the next chapter Jack teases Marty.

*

Thank you for reading my story. I sincerely hope you enjoyed it. Please take a moment to vote, make a public comment, and/or give me feedback. Your support is why I write. Your feedback will motivate me to write a better story the next time.

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To be continued...