Jack Nicholson.

Jack Nicholson. Jack Nicholson, born in 1937, American motion-picture actor, writer, director, and producer, known for his enigmatic, faintly menacing grin and his skill in portraying nonconformist loners. He is considered a performer of great versatility and range. Nicholson was born in Neptune, New Jersey, and entered show business at a young age, working as an office boy at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studios, then finding roles in theater productions and in television soap operas. Nicholson made his film debut with the lead role in a low-budget film by American director and producer Roger Corman, Cry Baby Killer (1958), but he had mostly minor roles for the next few years, often as 1960s counterculture types. In 1969 his performance in the movie Easy Rider made him an overnight success, and Nicholson followed it with a string of vivid characterizations in such films as Five Easy Pieces (1970), Carnal Knowledge (1971), The King of Marvin Gardens (1972), The Last Detail (1973), Chinatown (1974), and--most strikingly--as the antihero of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which he won his first Academy Award. He gave a terrifying performance in The Shining (1980) by American director Stanley Kubrick. In the 1980s Nicholson continued to demonstrate the extent of his acting range with such roles as those of American playwright Eugene O'Neill in the historical saga Reds (1981), a former astronaut in Terms of Endearment (1983; Academy Award for best supporting actor), a dim but affable Mafia member in Prizzi's Honor (1985), a lusty devil in The Witches of Eastwick (1987), a hopeless derelict in Ironweed (1987), and the Joker in Batman (1989). In the 1990s Nicholson's notable roles included a colonel in A Few Good Men (1992); the cunning, defiant title role in Hoffa (1992); a publisher-turned-werewolf in Wolf (1994); and an obsessive-compulsive writer in As Good As It Gets (1997), for which he won an Academy Award for best actor. In 2001 he played a police detective in The Pledge, which was directed by American actor and director Sean Penn. The following year Nicholson starred in About Schmidt as a newly retired insurance executive who searches for meaning in his life. In 2003 Nicholson starred opposite Diane Keaton in the romantic comedy Something's Gotta Give. In 2006 he appeared in the crime drama The Departed. In the late 1960s Nicholson wrote, produced, and starred in several low-budget films. In 1972 he released Drive He Said, which he cowrote, coproduced, and directed. He continued his work as a director with Goin' South (1978) and The Two Jakes (1990), a sequel to Chinatown. In 1994 Nicholson received the lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.