Actor: Jack Nicholson

Jack Nicholson has been nominated for twelve Academy Awards and won three, more than any male performer, and his particular gift is making an audience like someone who should frighten them. The grin arrives before the violence and does most of the work.

Easy Rider made him, Five Easy Pieces and Chinatown established him, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest won him Best Actor in a film that sweeps the major categories. The Shining is the performance most quoted and probably the least representative.

He worked in low-budget Corman pictures for years first, writing several of them, which gave him a working understanding of production that many actors never acquire.

He retired from acting quietly in the 2010s without an announcement. The late work, particularly About Schmidt, is quieter than the persona and among his best.