In news that was unfortunately inevitable, it is being reported that Jack Nicholson is stepping away from acting. Speaking at the Bafta Tea Party event in Los Angeles, longtime friend and Easy Rider co-star Peter Fonda said the legendary actor has essentially retired at the age of 79. Fonda had this to say:
“I think he is basically retired. I don’t want to speak for him, but he has done a lot of work and he has done very well as a person financially. Sometimes people have a reason that you don’t know, and it’s not for me to ask. I don’t call him up and say, ‘Johnny,’ I call him Johnny Hop, ‘What are you doing?’ I would say, ‘How are you, how do you feel?’”
It was reported a few years back that Nicholson was going to bow out due to memory loss, but his reps denied that. While it comes as no shock that an actor of Nicholson’s age would want to step away the business, it doesn’t make the news any less disappointing.
Nicholson is the most nominated male actor in Academy Awards history, racking up 12 nominations. Nicholson has won the Oscar for Best Actor twice, one for the drama One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and the other for the romantic comedy As Good as It Gets (1997). He also won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the comedy-drama Terms of Endearment(1983). Nicholson is one of three male actors to win three Academy Awards.
Nicholson is one of only two actors to be nominated for an Academy Award for acting in every decade from the 1960s to the 2000s; the other is Michael Caine. He has won six Golden Globe Awards, and received the Kennedy Center Honor in 2001. In 1994, he became one of the youngest actors to be awarded the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award.