“Only work and no play makes smart Jack stupid”-this is the classic line in Kubrick’s masterpiece The Shining.
Jack Nicholson contributed one of the most memorable performances in his career as an actor in the film. At that time, he had already won the Oscar for best actor, and later he won the Performance Award twice, becoming the prominent actor in the film academy.
Forty-two years later, Jack no longer had his once high spirits. It was said that his mental condition had deteriorated. Due to his loss of wisdom and memory, Jack was now at home in Beverly Hills solitude, and he had long been away from social intercourse and Vanity Fair.
He didn’t even appear on the side of the Lakers game anymore, more than a year has passed since he last came to watch the game. You know, except for actors, another most famous identity of Nicholson is Lakers fans.
It may have been half a century since he held the season tickets for the Lakers. When the flash shocked the world, his image was popular in the film world and he became the spokesman of Hollywood’s success stories, the Lakers are welcoming the “Showtime” Dynasty. To some extent, his fate with the Lakers is also intertwined until today.
Since the early 1970 s, Nicholson has been a frequent visitor to the Lakers games. At that time, NBA was still a non-entry League. But it was not until Jerry Bass acquired the Lakers in 1979 that Nicholson became the most dazzling star on the Lakers’ side (often on the court).
Old bass reshaped the brand of the Lakers and created the trend of “Lakers Girls”, turning basketball into real entertainment. He grasped the unique advantages of Los Angeles, making the game a star social field, while Nicholson, who ate Hollywood, became the main star of the Lakers.
At that time, everyone said that Jack himself had become an important part of the Lakers’ watching experience. Slowly, Los Angeles people came to the scene to watch the ball, but it was also for the stars in the front row of the Lakers that opened their eyes.
The so-called “cool is cool, but Nicholson is cooler than cool in watching the Lakers game”. At the scene of the Lakers game, he often dressed casually and only wore comfortable casual clothes. However, no one could imitate the posture of his gestures. It was said that it was not easy to find an old photo of Nicholson in the 1970 s and 1980 s, which seemed to be the same for the Lakers at that time. There are both “Lake Show” and “Jack Show” in the forum Stadium “.
The reason why Nicholson is so in tune is that many temperaments of Nicholson are very similar to those of the Lakers and old bass.
There was a famous saying in Los Angeles in the 1980 s: “Bath may be old, but girls will never be old.” Nicholson’s biography also introduced his days in his heyday: “All day long parties, drinking, taking drugs, sex, hookah, beauty, hot, the girl who threw herself into arms.”
Their Carnival can last for the whole weekend. The party brought together the hottest newcomers in the entertainment circle and all the young men who came to hunt for beauty. Some of them were single, some were not. What they wanted was exhaustion, spend spring night with those naked and sexy beauties.
Therefore, Nicholson had children with five different women, and he himself had only a marriage that lasted for four years. This kind of “lover” may be the most common product of Vanity Fair in that era. On the private life alone, Nicholson’s image can completely match Marlon Brando (he is really Brando’s neighbor on Mulholland Road, so that the road was ridiculed as “Bad Boy Drive”) or Clint-Eastwood or Robert De Niro, these legendary male stars overlap.
In the carnival of the Lakers Stadium, Americans not only go to old bass and magicians, but also try their best to get close to Nicholson.
In 1980, the Lakers just won the championship. Nicholson appeared at the post-game party of the Lakers, making the magician who was still a fool open his mouth. Later, the magician recalled, “it is the same thing to watch the game and support the team, but sitting beside us and drinking together is another matter…… I called my fellow Michigan villagers at that time, that was Jack Nicholson!”
Similarly, in front of Nicholson’s superstars, 19-year-old Kobe was also flattered. It was in 1998 when All-Star-Kobe’s first all-star-Nicholson had the first opportunity to communicate face to face with Kobe. At that time, Kobe was interviewed on the court. Nicholson interrupted the reporter and walked to them with a basketball, as if he were talking about a deep line: “Mr. Bryant, can you sign my name?”
Many years later, Kobe had passed away, and Nicholson, who had never left his home, expressed that he had been very laborious in a telephone interview (some people teased him whether he was still drunk at night), but he could still clearly recall Kobe’s appearance at that time. “Kobe looked at me as if I had lost my mind. Who on earth is a superstar?”
At the peak of the Lakers dynasty in 1986, Nicholson even participated in the shooting of the Lakers team. Wearing sunglasses to carry the Shadow Emperor, this is not only the creativity of modeling, but also represents the signboard of the team.
Even Nicholson’s watching partner has become a hot topic, whether it is Lu Adler, who is also a hardcore Lakers, he was also the partner in the play from Michael Douglas to Adam Sandler (he also encouraged Sandler to leave because he couldn’t stand the Lakers defeat, Sandler said that even the Lakers were stunned).
When Lake Kai competes to reignite, he is also an indispensable element. In the seventh game of the 2010 finals, every minute was a critical moment. Garnett saved the ball and crashed into Nicholson’s son. For this reason, the game (partly for him) was suspended for a long time, the detailed description of his every move in commentary is no less than the analysis tactics.
It was also in the finals that year. He saw Kai mi, who was arrogant on the field, directly contacted old bass himself, ask for their seats to be replaced-you know, those who can sit on the side of the finals are not rich or expensive, and Nicholson’s voice in the Lakers is indeed beyond many people’s imagination.
The Lakers in those years were always the darling of the times and the trend leader, so that fans regarded their magnificence and publicity as the eternal label. Even if they performed mediocre, everyone believed that it was only temporary.
But the death of old bass took away “Showtime”, and the popularity of tiktok and streaming media also changed movies and Hollywood. The generation dominated by algorithms who came to the Lakers Stadium to watch the ball had no idea what Nicholson’s acting career was and what he once looked like.
When the Lakers were in deep trouble, he once joked that he wanted to sell his season tickets at a low price. However, in the next season opener, he took back to his old position. But his posture, Showtime posture, is like that.
Now it seems that love has become a halo with a sense of age, under which it may be unbearable. Nicholson’s life experience actually reminds people of the plot in the biopic Blonde Monroe, which triggered many discussions last year.
His mother was a “showgirl” when she was young (coincidentally similar to the essence of “laker girl”), and was all taken up by married men for cheating marriage and teenage pregnancy. In order to hide his ugliness, Nicholson’s grandparents decided to adopt him as a son. Therefore, he called his biological mother sister for 40 years until the time magazine investigated and found out the truth in 1974, I chose to make this public.
At that time, his biological mother and grandmother had already passed away, and he tried to make a decent and “cool” response, it is not traumatic for him to say that such exaggerated things-“As for my feelings, the confidentiality ability of (time) is really powerful.”
Nicholson’s biological mother left his hometown in New Jersey to California for a living when he was four years old. Later, his ambition to enter the entertainment industry was also related to his obsession with finding his mother.
But after being old, Nicholson admitted that his relationship with women was always very chaotic because of “realizing that his mother didn’t want himself. “The following is a desperate desire,” he said. “Basically, I still get along with women by pleasing them, as if my survival depends on them. I am always dumped in a long-term relationship.” For this reason, he even expressed that “in order to thank his mother for not having an abortion in that year, he would oppose the constitutional granting of women’s abortion rights”, which contradicted his self-proclaimed Democratic supporters.
Nicholson’s last Madness was also at the peak of the Lakers in 2008 and 2009. His wild holidays were all filmed by paparazzi. Even though the gossip media at that time had some admiration for his unruly image, the years obviously did not spare him lightly.
In a few years, especially after old bath died of serious illness, he should have completely bid farewell to that lifestyle and never acted in a movie again.
In 2012, he said in an interview that he was tired of “fooling around” with women because he had no energy any more. He also said that he did not like the nickname of “sex Legend”, “I am extreme people, I will not deny the evaluation of lecherous people. But gigolo’s life never ends well.”
The so-called life is full of joy. The Lakers, Hollywood and Los Angeles have become the brand of him, so that under the layers of huamel coat, no one has to go deep into where he is from, what kind of suffering and torture did he experience.
In 2013, the news of Nicholson’s illness came out in the media, and he himself firmly denied it. But the fact that he no longer plays in movies makes more and more people doubt whether he has lost his ability of lines.
Because it faded out for many years, Hollywood was kind to him, at least giving him the last dignity and protecting his privacy. But friends still couldn’t help sighing. Jack, who was once so incomparable, would be too sad to leave in such a way.
In October, 2021, after another round of news of his serious illness from the media, Nicholson appeared at the opening scene of the Lakers and came to his most familiar side seat. Because of the epidemic, he has not been to Staples Center to watch the ball for more than a year. That was his last appearance at the home of the Lakers and his last public appearance. Soon afterwards, even the name of “Staples Center” became history.
“Smart Jack becomes stupid even if he only works and does not play.” Jack on the big screen said so.
Jack in reality said, “I learned how to be an optimist a long time ago, because any other outlook on life will only make life more miserable.”
The past is like smoke, drifting away with the wind. At least the Lakers will accompany him to the end.
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(Text/kewell)