Jack: The Great Seducer FROM THE CRITICS
John DiLeo - The Washington Post
Douglas does succeed in conveying that moment in American movies, epitomized by Nicholson's "Easy Rider" (1969) and "Five Easy Pieces" (1970), when anti-establishment ideas and characters arrived on-screen. "Five Easy Pieces presented a new kind of male in American cinema," he writes, "one who deconstructed not only the usual he-man stereotype of masculinity but, cutting closer to the bone of contemporary reality, unmasked the counterculture rebel, showing him as a far more intriguing creature than Brando, Dean, or Dustin Hoffman -- or, for that matter, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper -- had ever envisaged."
Publishers Weekly
Nicholson has already been the subject of nearly a dozen books, most of which are mined thoroughly for information in this latest tell-all. Douglas does little more than update the record established in Patrick McGilligan's standard-setting Jack's Life with a decade's worth of new films and gossip about a stormy relationship with actor Lara Flynn Boyle. Douglas, who claims several previous biographies to his credit but has chosen to publish pseudonymously, did manage to land interviews with B-movie mogul Roger Corman and other members of Nicholson's earliest Hollywood circles that shed light on the actor's start in Hollywood, but he's much more interested in the rambling, self-serving tales he accumulates from recent ex-lovers. Douglas's prose contains all the worst excesses of the celebrity biography genre, yet at least the overabundance of salacious irrelevancies distracts from Douglas's weak efforts at psychoanalysis. Douglas celebrates Nicholson for being "ahead of his time" in front of the camera while condemning his off-screen shortcomings, and the judgmental tone frequently lapses into pure snideness, especially when individual films come under discussion. This is a brazen appeal to the lust for sordid celebrity stories with just enough moralizing so that readers won't feel too cheap and dirty afterward. 8-page b&w photo insert not seen by PW. (On sale Nov. 9) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Everything-but-the-kitchen-sink style portrait of the noted actor and unstoppable womanizer. The pseudonymous Douglas (author, we are told, of previous biographies) admires baby-boomer icon Nicholson, theorizing that his most notable roles-in Easy Rider, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Carnal Knowledge, About Schmidt-anticipated seismic shifts in the American psyche. This early sentence gives a fair idea of the project's tone: "Loving Jack Nicholson [was] a maze with no way out, like the treacherous hedge that defeated Jack Torrance in The Shining." The author's major psychological insight concerns the not exactly breaking news that Nicholson, conceived by an unmarried woman, grew up believing his grandmother to be his mother and his mother his sister; he learned the devastating truth well after he became a star. The actor spent years honing his craft in B pictures, then incarnated the new, countercultural Hollywood in his riveting early-1970s performances. Douglas's hectic prose swerves to link Nicholson's antics to larger trends in drugs, fashion, and restaurant culture with mixed success. Fellow rogues like Robert Evans, Dennis Hopper, and Nick Nolte drift through the narrative, while Nicholson's own musings demonstrate him to be witty, intelligent, but ultimately arrogant, embodying Tinseltown's complicated solipsism as well as any living actor. (On his outsized fees: "The minute someone signs a deal with me they've made money, so what does it matter?") The author offers recollections and caustic commentary from many of Nicholson's old flames, detailing his "wild" seduction tactics and inner isolation, but the mirth is dampened by his refusal to utilize condoms. In the 1990s, notablefor bitter litigation with the mother of his oldest child and incidents of road rage, Nicholson's life seemed flaccid and ugly, although he still provided reliable box office and the occasional strong performance in, for example, As Good As It Gets. Rich in scandal-sheet anecdotes-bed-hopping, copious drug use, and real-estate coups abound-but oddly hagiographic overall, this is a flat, uninflected read. Detailed, mildly salacious, not especially moving or surprising.
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