{"id":1561,"date":"2007-11-24T20:48:33","date_gmt":"2007-11-25T03:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=1561"},"modified":"2007-12-05T17:08:28","modified_gmt":"2007-12-05T23:56:28","slug":"nicholson-bio-shows-jokers-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=1561","title":{"rendered":"Nicholson bio shows Joker’s life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tara Ison writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Former Times staff writer Dennis McDougal makes a similar concession in "Five Easy Decades," his biography of the man he calls the "Biggest Movie Star in Modern Times"; he cleverly Teflons himself against charges of superficiality by asserting the unknowableness of his subject, arguing that, in part, Nicholson’s determined elusiveness has kept the public enthralled for 50-odd years. "The remarkable facts of Jack’s life," McDougal writes, "are so mired with the fictions — both deliberate and unintentional — that just getting him into focus is a rigorous yet hypnotic exercise."<\/p>\n

As a result, perhaps, his book is a comprehensive and entertaining crazy quilt of quotations, trivia and behind-the-scenes Hollywood lore, a hold-no-punches paean that’s slight on analysis but rich in All Things Jack.<\/p>\n

Born in Neptune City, N.J., McDougal reports, John Joseph Nicholson Jr.’s actual birth date and paternity are unknown. It’s also unclear when Nicholson discovered the shape-shifting roles of the women who raised him: His "older sister" and "mother" were, in fact, his mother and grandmother.<\/p>\n

Virtually fatherless, young Nicholson developed a desperate reliance on female attention and approval. Too small to score on the high school basketball court, he learned instead the scoring tricks of the class clown. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tara Ison writes: Former Times staff writer Dennis McDougal makes a similar concession in "Five Easy Decades," his biography of the man he calls the "Biggest Movie Star in Modern Times"; he cleverly Teflons himself against charges of superficiality by … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hollywood"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}