Screen legend Jack Nicholson, who has brought a certain amount of jovial lunacy to even the most trivial of roles (in everything from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” to “Mars Attacks!”), has not quietly retired, despite reports from Radar Online earlier today [via FilmStage]. The website reported that Nicholson was leaving the biz due primarily to memory loss: Nicholson can “no longer remember the lines being asked of him.” Thankfully, this news was 100% untrue, with EOnline reporting that NBC’s Maria Shriver has confirmed that these rumors are false, that Nicholson is in fine health and that he has no plans to retire. Thank Christ.
The Radar report also erroneously cited his so-called memory loss issues as the reason Nicholson turned down a showy role in Payne’s “Nebraska,” which recently premiered at Cannes and will be making the festival circuit before opening later this fall (the role went to Nicholson’s old confederate Bruce Dern). Sometimes stories are just too juicy to ignore. Other ones you wait out and see whether or not they pan out. This rumor, happily, didn’t pan out for anyone.
But while we’re on the subject of Nicholson, you might as well check out our recent feature on five of the actor’s most overlooked late-period performances.
