J.D. Nicholsen

One of the most respected, imitated, successful, and famous Hollywood stars, Jack Nicholson is one of the few actors to achieve acclaim across so many decades and in so many different genres. His career began modestly in the late 1950s with appearances in lesser-known films, and on television shows such as "Hawaiian Eye" and "Dr. Kildare." In 1969, he had an unforgettable part in Dennis Hopper's counter-culture classic, "Easy Rider," for which he received a Best Supporting Actor Academy nomination, and from there Nicholson's career began to take off. He starred in the gritty 1970 film "Five Easy Pieces," which earned him another Oscar nomination, this time in a leading role, and then in "Carnal Knowledge" in 1971. More Oscar nominations followed, first for "The Last Detail" and then for the Roman Polanski classic, "Chinatown." In 1975, his work finally won over the Academy with Best Actor honors for his role in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" as McMurphy, a criminal admitted to a mental institution. Nicholson continued to produce consistently memorable characters, including Jack Torrance in "The Shining" in 1980, Garrett Breedlove in "Terms of Endearment" (producing another Oscar win, this time for Best Supporting Actor), and Charley Partanna in John Huston's "Prizzi's Honor." In 1998, he won his third Oscar, for his role as the obsessive-compulsive Melvin Udall, a despicable character who pushes his way, uninvited, into the life of Carol Connelly, as played by Helen Hunt, in "As Good as it Gets." Nicholson continued his success into the 2000s, with leading roles in such critically-acclaimed films as Alexander Payne's "About Schmidt" and Martin Scorsese's "The Departed."