What Jack Nicholson Looked Like When He Was Younger

If the image of Jack Nicholson breaking through a door with a deranged look is stuck in your mind, fear not, because the actor used to be quite the heartthrob. His classic "Here's Johnny" scene from "The Shining" is just one of the many roles the veteran actor has portrayed throughout the years. One of Jack Nicholson's first big roles was in the 1969 road trip movie "Easy Rider." According to critic Roger Ebert, Nicholson stole the show in his performance and after appearing on screen for the first time, "the movie starts to work." After his Best Actor winning performance in the 1975 classic "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," Nicholson's illustrious career continued. As of 2021, he earned 12 total Oscar nominations — the most of any male actor, according to Screen Rant. But his acting career stopped indefinitely on a low note in "How Do You Know." The star-studded 2010 film was a failure to both critics and audiences, according to Rotten Tomatoes.

More than just acting, Nicholson once seemed like the mayor of Hollywood partly for his debauchery. "There were points in my life when I felt oddly irresistible to women," he told The Sun. And in addition to being "the man no woman could resist," Nicholson reportedly partied with the biggest stars of the '70s like the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and Jim Morrison.

Let's rewind the clock to those days and take a closer look at how Jack Nicholson looked when he was younger.

Ever since he joined the Hollywood scene, Jack Nicholson has been linked romantically with other celebrities, like his on-and-off girlfriend Anjelica Huston. At the time when he was mostly unknown, Nicholson married fellow actor Sandra Knight in 1962, per The Hollywood Reporter. The two had a daughter, Jennifer, and they were married for six years, per The Baltimore Sun. Nicholson became a grandfather when Jennifer had a son, Sean; she later had a second son, Duke. Another celebrity Nicholson dated was musician Michelle Phillips from the Mamas and the Papas, the '60s band famous for "California Dreaming." According to People, Phillips became pregnant with Nicholson's child but had a miscarriage.

As a fresh face in Hollywood, Nicholson began working on the movie "Five Easy Pieces" with actor Susan Anspach. And according to Anspach, "she and Jack were having a fling" while filming in 1970, according to People. Later that year, she was reportedly pregnant with Nicholson's son. Throughout his career, the actor was mostly silent about his relationship with the boy, Caleb Goddard. But in 1998, Nicholson revealed to Rolling Stone that "Caleb and I have been getting along beautifully now." He also confessed that he couldn't dive into the specifics "based on the legality — the extremely unpleasant litigious nature of most of my relationship there." 

Nicholson also had two children, Lorraine and Raymond, with Rebecca Broussard, born one year apart. And the actor has been rumored to be the father of two more children.

Jack Nicholson's role in 1969's "Easy Rider" earned the actor his first Academy Award nomination, per The Kennedy Center. But it also cemented Nicholson's image as an "anti-hero," which was at times reflected in his personal life. And Nicholson didn't hide the fact that he liked to party. "I've woken up in trees, I've woken up almost hanging off cliffs," he told The Sun in September 2013. The Rolling Stones' guitarist Keith Richards — a man who once claimed to sleep only two days a week — revealed that even he had a difficult time keeping up with Nicholson. "The only person I've ever had to say, 'I have to go home now' to is Jack Nicholson," Richards reportedly said, via The Sun.

The actor began partying with famous faces in the '60s, like the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and his neighbor Marlon Brando. "I saw this documentary with a scene of me and the Beatles out in Malibu, and I just couldn't remember it," Nicholson told Rolling Stone. And he admitted, "I could tell from the film I was a bit loaded — no doubt about that." According to Nicholson, he supported the ideals of "free love" and "organic sexual flow." 

As the actor continued his career in Hollywood, he kept the good times rolling by hosting plenty of parties. Nicholson told People in July 1980 that he loved to entertain and in his opinion, "To be successful, a party has to have a completely private atmosphere."