Jack Nicholson‘s retired. At the age of 76, he’s decided to take a back seat and not star in films anymore. According to a well-placed Hollywood source talking to Radar Online, the actor has simply stopped taking work. He didn’t want any fanfare surrounding the announcement, any announcement at all for that matter.
Apparently he’s struggling to remember lines, which is no surprise given his advanced age. It doesn’t rule him out of appearing in silent movies but, until someone invents a time machine, that option’s probably not on the table. His last film was the appalling How Do You Know, which he starred in alongside Reese Witherspoon. While it would be unfair to put the blame squarely at Witherspoon’s door, one can only wonder what happened during production to prevent him from ever wanting to work again.
While we should try and avoid turning this into an obituary, it might be worth running through a few of his greatest roles – Jack Torrance in The Shining; Randle McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; and Frank Costello in The Departed. He holds the record for the most Oscar nominations of any male actor, and is tied with Daniel Day Lewis and Walter Brennan for the amount of Oscar wins by a male actor (three).
The source goes on to say that Jack Nicholson has no intention of retiring from the limelight, he just won’t be acting anymore. He was pegged for a role in the upcoming Nebraska, playing an aging, booze-addled father who makes the trip from Montana to Nebraska with his estranged son in order to claim a million dollar Mega Sweepstakes Marketing prize, but declined. The role eventually went to Bruce Dern.
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