Jack Nicholson’s new biography reveals his ‘trailer sex with Meryl Streep’, his LSD-induced homoerotic fear fantasies and how he was a ‘better swordsman’ than Warren Beatty
His prowess with women is the stuff of legends.
But a new biography of Hollywood superstar Jack Nicholson alleges he slept with one of the most successful actresses of all time – Meryl Streep.
Jack, now 76, starred with Meryl, 64, in two films, Heartburn and Ironweed, and it was while filming the latter film that writer Marc Eliot claims the stars left the band shaking -Jack’s announcement, writing, “Often during filming, his Winnebago seemed to be balancing on four overworked Slinkys.
The book also details his prolific drug use that nearly ended his career, his weight issues – and how even his friends called him a “better swordsman” than that infamous lothario, Warren Beatty.
Jack and Meryl played the feuding husband and wife in the 1986 film Heartburn, written by the late scribe Nora Ephron and based on the true story of her tumultuous marriage to journalist Carl Bernstein – which ended after her liaison with Baroness Margaret Jay.
Although it was claimed at the time that filming ended with Meryl throwing Jack out of his hotel room and vowing never to do another movie with him after his ‘relentless sexual overtures’ – a report which she denied – the actors teamed up again on Ironweed in 1987.
The new book, Nicholson, chronicles the first meeting between the two on the set of Heartburn in 1985. Eliot writes, “Jack met Streep the first day he was on set. (Mike) Nichols had wanted to keep some tension between them before the cameras rolled. According to Streep, “It was like meeting Mick Jagger or Bob Dylan. He was a big deal”.
‘To break that tension, just before their first scene together, Nicholson knocked on the door of Streep’s trailer and asked if he could use his bathroom. She said sure. Tensions end.’
And Eliot writes that a fling then took place on the set of Ironweed while Jack was still in an on-and-off romance with his longtime lover Anjelica Huston – as well as he reportedly slept with actress Veronica Cartwright.
The pair played a stranded baseball player and his lover and drinking partner in the film based on William Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, and Eliot said: “As soon as it started, rumors exploded like mushrooms savages that something was going on between Jack and his co-star, I’ll Never Work With Him Again Meryl Streep.
“There had been rumors that the two had become unusually close, but both denied it. Jack was in a bit of a pickle, as he continued to actively, albeit secretly, see Cartwright.
“However, once filming for Ironweed began, everyone on set and those who heard of it weren’t talking about the script, directing or set design of the film, but about Jack and Meryl. Often during the filming, his Winnebago seemed to be balancing on four overworked Slinkys.
“An anonymous source told Mitchell Fink of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner that ‘whatever’s going on inside this Winnebago is starting to spiral out of control, to the point that it’s embarrassing a lot of people on set.’ The story was released on April 22, 1987, Jack’s fiftieth birthday.
And the actors’ affection for each other has never waned as they remain close friends. Last year, Meryl, happily married to sculptor Don Gummer for 35 years, and mother of four, chose Jack to ‘fuck’ while appearing on Andy Cohen’s Bravo show, Watch What Happens Live.
When asked who she would ‘marry, marry or kill’ – Meryl chose Robert Redford to ‘marry’, Jack to ‘bleed’ and his Kramer vs. Kramer co-star Dustin Hoffman to ‘kill’ “.
As he paid tribute to the three-time Oscar winner as she received the AFI Life Achievement Award in April 2004, Jack called her “perfect”. Teasing her for her acting skills and calling her ‘transcendent talent’, he said: ‘To me you are perfect and I love you very much, God bless you and God bless America . ”
At one point, the book claims Jack was juggling Anjelica, 19-year-old Brit Karen Mayo-Chandler – who went on to pose in Playboy and call him ‘that horny little devil’ – Veronica Cartwright – that he has met on the set of Goin’ South and later worked with on The Witches of Eastwick – the occasional Lakers cheerleader and “maybe” Meryl.
Jack has only been married once – to Sandra Knight, with whom he has a daughter Jennifer, 50. He has two children Lorraine, 23, and Ray, 21, with ex-girlfriend Rebecca Broussard, daughter Honey Hollman, 32, from his relationship with Danish actress Winnie Hollman and son Caleb Goddard, 43 years, of a romance with actress Susan Anspach.
Eliot also claims that Jack was a “chronic drug user in the early years of his career”, experimenting with LSD in the early 1960s and using cocaine and marijuana”.
He alleges: “Jack’s experiences with drugs changed his life. He believed after taking it the first time he saw the face of God.
“He also had castration fantasies, homoerotic fear fantasies and revelations about not being wanted as a baby.
“And while tripping, he could deal with the lingering problem of premature ejaculation that had plagued him ever since he’d started sleeping with Georgianna Carter – a girl he’d met in acting class – (and that he would never fully overcome.) All of these visions and revelations were tied together, like the wire that connects individual posts to a fence. Jack would continue to take LSD for years.
Once he told People that drugs “ain’t much,” Jack wrote the screenplay for the cult 1967 film The Trip while “on acid” and “regularly getting high and high.” dropping acid” while writing the psychedelic adventure film The Monkees Head the following year. , according to Eliot.
And he’s also reportedly met potential investors for Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper’s cult film Easy Rider “With a Joint.”
In fact, drugs were a constant presence on the set of Easy Rider, according to a slew of subsequent reports and comments from the cast themselves.
Jack is said to have later admitted: “Being stoned helped me creatively
[with] writing… it’s easier to have fun mentally.
His ex, Susan Anspach, once even alleged that he took cocaine to get through a crying scene in the 1970 drama Five Easy Pieces.
Having developed a reputation as one of Hollywood’s biggest arsonists, Eliot claims that Jack was an even bigger womanizer than Warren Beatty.
The couple reportedly immediately hit it off after being introduced by producer Bert Schneider at a Hollywood party in 1971.
Eliot writes, “After running around with him for a few weeks, Jack quickly nicknamed Beatty ‘Master B’ or ‘The Pro’ for his ability to sleep with women. Beatty, meanwhile, nicknamed Jack ‘The Weaver’ for his ability to tell a good story.
“According to Bob Evans, Jack was the best swordsman, saying, ‘He was a really great player. Even Warren Beatty hasn’t been so successful with women.
To this day, the three-time Oscar winner remains as charming as ever – although he told the Mail in 2011: “I’m definitely still crazy at heart. But I hit bio-gravity. I can no longer flirt with women in public. I didn’t decide that; It doesn’t seem fair to me at my age.
Although he was able to woo some of the most beautiful women in the world, Jack – who put his big belly to good use in his later hit films such as Terms of Endearment and Something’s Gotta Give – struggled with his weight at the top of his fame.
After hiring Judy Mazel, of Beverly Hills Diet book and “dietrix to the stars” fame, he quickly piled on the pounds after filming Postman, and Eliot writes, “Too soon, much of the weight he had worked so hard to lose came back, as it usually does with crash diets. He only allowed a few friends to visit, including Bert Schneider, Harry Dean Stanton, Bob Rafelson, Hunter S. Thompson and Lou Adler.
The new book also details the question of Jack’s paternity after he spent the first 37 years of his life believing his parents were John and Ethel May Nicholson.
Instead, he was told in late 1974, his mother was actually his older sister June and his father was Don Furcillo-Rose, a dark-haired charmer who was sometimes a musician.
Jack only found out the truth when two film students, Robert David Crane and Christopher Fryer, writing a thesis on him, contacted him – and he begged them to keep it a secret in exchange for an interview. A close friend said he was “devastated and shocked” by the information, while Peter Fonda said the possible release had caused “a deep wound inside”.
Michele Phillips, his ex-girlfriend, said it was “horrible for him”. Over the weeks, the poor guy had a hard time adjusting to it. He had been raised in this romantic relationship…surrounded by women…now I think he thought all women were liars.
Remaining close to June, whom he stayed with when he first moved to Los Angeles after graduating from high school in 1954 at her invitation, Jack was devastated when she died at age 44 on July 31, 1963, from cervical cancer – nearly 10 years before he even found out she might be his real mother.
Although he did his best to limit the publication of the story, in 1977 the story behind Jack’s alleged birthright was published in the Sunday morning supplement Parade, in an article by columnist Walter Scott, who said his source was Furcillo-Rose.
Jack immediately tracked down his phone number and called him to ask if he was his real father. Furcillo-Rose said yes, adding that he was also part of a love triangle between June and Ethel May, which is why she sometimes lets him stay home. Stunned, Jack did not accept the news and released a statement calling the claims “false and defamatory”.
Furcillo-Rose refused to take a blood test when contacted by Jack’s legal team and the star never spoke to him again.
