How Jack Nicholson Found Out The Truth About His Mother

Jack Nicholson has lived a colorful life and portrayed even more colorful characters. From consistently being included in lists of the biggest womanizers in Hollywood — and in history, for that matter — to being one of the main reasons the street he lives on, Mulholland Drive, became infamously known as "Bad Boy Drive" in the 1970s, Nicholson's personal life has attracted attention through the decades. As a result, Nicholson has "spent as much of his career in front of still cameras ... as he has on the set," the LIFE magazine editors wrote in the excerpt of "Jack Nicholson: The Illustrated Biography." 

Nicholson has always been honest about his lifestyle, and stood by it. "[H]e's the example of what a free human being is. He didn't tell any lies; he didn't make any promises; he didn't pretend. He simply was free," Margaret Trudeau, mother of Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who had a short-lived fling with "The Shining" star in the late 1970s, told Vanity Fair. 

But, behind this unique persona is also a man who has faced many adversities in his life, starting out when he was born. Nicholson never learned who his father was, though he doesn't seem to resent it. "I have nothing but gratitude for my upbringing," he told the Daily Mail. In addition to not knowing the identity of his father, Nicholson was also raised by someone other than his mother, a fact he learned only when he was an adult in a rather surprising way.

Jack Nicholson was raised by John and Ethel May Nicholson, whom he believed were his mother and father, though the latter was rarely around, per a 1984 Rolling Stone interview. To support the family, Ethel ran a beauty parlor, which marked Jack's childhood. "I was raised entirely by women," Jack told the Daily Mail. But the truth is that Ethel and John were actually Jack's grandparents, not his parents. 

Per Cigar Aficionado, Ethel and John's eldest daughter, June Nicholson, discovered she was pregnant at 16, after she left New Jersey for New York City to pursue a career in theater. June's determined personality was deemed scandalous in the 1930s, so her parents had her give birth in New York, supposedly to keep their family and acquaintances in New Jersey in the dark about the whole thing, and returned to their hometown as the parents of a young boy.

June then became Jack's sister. It wasn't until the mid-70s, after both Ethel and June had died, that Jack learned the truth about his parentage. It was actually Time's journalists who uncovered the truth while researching Jack for a cover story, Jack told Rolling Stone. He got confirmation from Lorraine, whom he believed to be his other sister, now uncovered as his aunt. "Such is the price of fame. People start poking around in your private life, and the next thing you know your sister is actually your mother," he told Cigar Aficionado.

Because Jack Nicholson didn't learn that June Nicholson was his mother until after she died, he didn't get the chance to inquire about the identity of his father, according to Rolling Stone. "Only Ethel and June knew, and they never told anybody," he told the magazine. But biographers have laid out some theories. In 1936, June married showman Donald Furcillo, or Donald Rose, as he was known in the industry, according to their marriage certificate. The marriage was short-lived, but Jack was born the following year, leading many to suspect Furcillo was the father. He also claimed to be Jack's father after the news surfaced, per Cigar Aficionado.

However, Patrick McGilligan, author of "Jack's Life: A Biography of Jack Nicholson" (via Radar Online) argued Jack's father was actually June's Latvian-born manager, Edgar A. Kirschfeld, known as Eddie King. Kirschfeld, a musician who came to the U.S. on the SS Estonia in 1925, stayed in the country undocumented. To protect him from possible deportation, June told Furcillo her baby was his, per Radar Online.

To this day, Jack is none the wiser regarding who his biological father was, but he doesn't seem too fazed by it — or by the discovery that June was his mother. "I'd say it was a pretty dramatic event, but it wasn't what I'd call traumatizing," Jack told Cigar Aficionado in 2003. "After all, by the time I found out who my mother was I was pretty well psychologically formed."