A new biography of Jack Nicholson claims that the actor was a “chronic drug user in the early years of his career”.
It appears Jack Nicholson, now 76-years-old, began his drug use “with LSD in the early 1960s”.
Excerpts published in The National Enquirer and Radar, from the forthcoming tome Nicholson, by Marc Eliot alleges Jack Nicholson also “took co***ne and mar***ana”.
Marc Eliot alleges: “Jack’s experiences with the drug were life-changing. He believed after taking it the first time that he had seen the face of God.”
He also claims Jack Nicholson wrote the screenplay for the cult 1967 film The Trip while “on acid” and “regularly got stoned and dropped acid” while writing The Monkees psychedelic adventure comedy film Head the following year.
Jack Nicholson is alleged to have met potential investors for the cult Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper film Easy Rider “with a joint”.
In fact, drugs were a constant presence on the Easy Rider set, according to a slew of reports and subsequent comments by the actors themselves.
Jack Nicholson is said to have later admitted: “Being stoned has helped me creatively [with] writing… it’s easier to entertain yourself mentally.”
Actress Susan Anspach, Jack Nicholson’s ex-girlfriend, once even alleged he took co***ne to get though a crying scene in 1970 drama Five Easy Pieces.
Jack Nicholson and a friend is also alleged to have “chain smoked joints” while shooting 1973 film The Last Detail “to keep warm and stay high, which he was most of the time”, according to Marc Eliot.
Controversially, Jack Nicholson famously told People magazine that drugs “ain’t no big thing” in a 1980 interview.
“I still love to get high, I’d say, about four days a week. I think that’s about average for an American,” Jack Nicholson said.
“Last year on a raft trip I had a little flavor of the season – peach mescaline – but it was not like the hallucinatory state of the ’60s. This was just kind of sunny.
“I don’t advocate anything for anybody. But I choose always to be candid because I don’t like the closet atmosphere of drugging. In other words, it ain’t no big thing. You can wreck yourself with it, but Christ, you can wreck yourself with anything.”
Marc Eliot writes that Jack Nicholson began to curtail his excesses after the death of several close friends, physical problems and realizing “his drug use was taking a toll on his career”. Apparently the actor lost out on the role of Rooster Hannigan in Annie because Carol Burnett, who played Mrs. Hannigan, was a stringent anti-drug crusader.
