"Volatile Jack Nicholson has found the perfect biographer in Patrick McGilligan, who gives us a rich, absorbing portrait of one of the greatest movie stars ever." ―Patricia Bosworth
No male American film star of the post-Brando era has demonstrated the talent, the charisma, the larger-than-life audacity, and the string of screen triumphs of Jack Nicholson. In
Jack's Life, Patrick McGilligan, one of our finest film historians, has produced the definitive biography of this most private and public of stars, from his tangled Dickensian upbringing in New Jersey, his formative years as an actor and screenwriter, his near-accidental breakthrough to stardom in
Easy Rider, and his string of great roles in
Chinatown,
Five Easy Pieces,
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,
The Last Detail,
The Shining, and other films that mark him as a searching, complex artist. Here as well is the often Rabelaisian life behind the smiling mask, the legendary romances and appetites for sex and drugs, the obsessions with money and control, and the perpetual restlessness.
Patrick McGilligan has edited the acclaimed Backstory series and written distinguished biographies of film figures including George Cukor, Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock, and, most recently, Orson Welles. He lives in Milwaukee.
