Hollywood Hellraisers (48 page)

Tom Mankiewicz believes Warren never had any intention of running for high office. ‘He’s always been genuinely politically involved. At the same time he loved the fact that people thought from time to time that he was going to run for public office. And he would encourage people to think that. He would make campaign speeches on behalf of causes or other politicians and then he would sort of drop in a little something which suggests that maybe one day he might run. And then the crowd would go crazy. And I think he loved every minute of that, and never had any intention of running for anything. Can you imagine Warren in the Congress? He’d be just one of a hundred senators, and Warren Beatty’s never been one of a hundred anything. And he wouldn’t be able to lead the kind of life that Warren likes.’

After the radical
Bulworth
and the restoration of some critical reputation, Warren fell back into complacency on his next film,
Town and Country
(2001); it turned out to be his biggest disaster. He hasn’t returned to the screen since. Many saw it as a mistake, especially at his age, to play yet again a man who seduces lots of women. The
Daily Express
reported from one test preview that audiences no longer accepted Warren as a serial philanderer. ‘They couldn’t stand Beatty because he was after only one thing from women – sex – and he didn’t seem like the sort of guy who would be able to get much.’ Interestingly the film featured previous flames Goldie Hawn and Diane Keaton.

Quickly the film started to court bad press, with some insiders once again blaming Warren’s perfectionism for complicating matters. There were script rewrites, reshoots, God knows what else, all conspiring to push the budget towards $90m, that’s
Ben Hur
proportions and this was a light, fluffy romantic comedy. What was going on? Stories came back that Warren was at loggerheads with the director Peter Chelsom, that Chelsom couldn’t control the star and was being pushed around by him. Cameraman William Fraker was on set and saw the whole thing unfold.
‘Town and Country
was a complete disaster. Peter Chelsom was a great guy, really understands cinema, but Warren was off on a track. I don’t know what was going on with him on that picture, there were major discussions and problems. They just didn’t get along at all.’ The film stiffed big time at the box office.

Maybe to let off steam, Warren tore around Mulholland Drive daily on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Annette said that, since he’d passed the age of sixty-three, perhaps he should give up the Harley. ‘No way,’ came the reply.

As is the way in Hollywood, their senior citizens are suddenly deluged with awards, lest they peg it. Warren was no exception. In 2007 he got a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Golden Globes. ‘What balls this man has,’ said host Tom Hanks. ‘And by balls, I mean artistic vision.’ In 2008 it was the big one, recognition from the American Film Institute, with the whole of Hollywood turning up to salute him: Jane Fonda, Dustin Hoffman, Diane Keaton, Quentin Tarantino, Faye Dunaway and Halle Berry; political friends too like George McGovern, Bill Clinton and Gary Hart. Don Cheadle amusingly related the sometimes torturous direction he was subjected to by Warren on
Bulworth
, saying that, as directors, Clint Eastwood and Warren Beatty typically require 140 takes per scene – Eastwood does one and Warren does 139.

One notable absentee was Jack, over at an important Lakers championship game a few miles away. ‘Rumour has it that he might have been sitting courtside in a tuxedo,’ joked Hoffman. Of course he showed up later, rather bedraggled, and pitched in with his tribute, saying Beatty had, ‘Received eight times as many awards as he’s made pictures. You get all these honours because of your passion and your dedication to excellence. This is why I’m crazy about your work.’

I have never lied to you, I have always told you some version of the truth.

After years away it was Sean Penn who finally lured Jack Nicholson back onto our screens. Since
The Crossing Guard
the two men had forged an affectionate and admiring friendship. Penn called Jack one of the greatest gifts to American culture. ‘You can’t imagine what it’s like at 6 a.m. in some distant location and out of the car comes that face, and says, “Morning, boys, let’s go to work.”’ Penn’s latest project was
The Pledge
(2001), a dark and dour psychological thriller, a big risk at a time when commercial escapism dominated the multiplexes of the world. But then going against convention has always been a great attraction for Jack.

By the summer of 2001 Jack was keen to get some kind of semblance of normality back into his private life. Still seeing Lara Flynn Boyle, he invited Rebecca over to London for Wimbledon and took her along with him to the Moscow film festival. In Russia Jack took time out to meet President Vladimir Putin, who was quite lost for words before confessing that
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
was his favourite film. Back home Jack was one of the recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors, an annual prize for excellence in the arts. Old pal Warren was on hand to host a collection of clips from Jack’s movies, telling the audience, ‘He’s everyman; he’s us.’ To which one media commentator added the postscript, ‘Well, let’s hope not.’

Jack deliberately looked like shit in his next film
About Schmidt
(2002), playing the ultimate grumpy old man, a completely depressive old git. Worried about his appearance, he never once looked in a mirror throughout the whole of filming, thinking, What if I get stuck in this character? What if I can’t get back to me? It was genuinely shocking. But Jack isn’t averse to looking kind of extreme up there on the screen. He’s not the most vain person anyway, ‘But getting older has certainly made me less vain.’ Jack’s never been particularly fond of birthdays, signifying as they do the marching of time. He ignores them. ‘I started in 1972 to simply eliminate the calendar.’ He may feel inside like the gallivanting Jack of old, but he knew that person was buried long ago. As he admitted to
Newsweek
in 2002. ‘There are a lot of crazy nitwit things that I can’t do any longer. I can’t work on a movie for twelve hours a day, then go out and burn the streets down to the ground all night and get wild. I don’t have the energy for it. I don’t have the same libido.’ It used to be that Jack couldn’t go to sleep unless it involved some amorous contact. ‘If I was alone two or three nights in a row, I’d start writing poems about suicide.’ Now, shock horror, most nights he slept alone, and he’d found it rather liberating. ‘My fear is that I’m beginning to prefer it.’

The success of
About Schmidt
showed that even in advanced middle age and in a youth-obsessed culture Jack continued to be one of the most bankable stars in the American film industry. ‘Why has Jack lasted so long?’ asked friend Danny DeVito. ‘You know what I think it is? You always like him. What can you say? The guy played the devil! You gotta love him!’ For many the movie’s most memorable scene had the rather rotund actress Kathy Bates climbing starkers into a hot tub with our Jack, who was far too bashful at this time of life to remove for real all his clothes. ‘Come on,’ urged Kathy. ‘You don’t need to wear those boxer shorts. I won’t look, I promise.’ Away from the cameras Jack wasn’t so bashful, stunning neighbours at the home he rented in Nebraska during the location shoot by strolling around the place nude, obviously not giving a shit whether the curtains were drawn or not. Locals were thrilled when the star moved in. ‘I mean, we wanted to see Jack in person,’ said a spokesman. ‘But this was ridiculous.’

Away from Hollywood, Jack was coming to terms with being dumped once again by Lara Flynn Boyle, this time for good. It hurt him badly and friends were worried that he was losing weight and looking haggard. Some relationships certainly seemed to shatter him for longer than the average person. He once admitted that at some point he’d asked every woman he ever lived with to marry him. ‘But they knew me too well.’ As did Jack himself. He knew he’d always roam, so wisely never married again in order that he wouldn’t have to cheat on his wife. And, like Warren, he holds affection for every woman he ever loved and regrets her departure, without entirely regretting whatever he might have done to hasten it. ‘I know I’ve caused pain to some of the women I’ve loved, but I won’t defend myself because I’ve never pretended to be something I’m not.’ On bleak nights, though, alone up on Mulholland Drive, a little part of him envies the family men who have spent their lives with one woman. But not for long.

Now in his mid-sixties, Jack, it seemed, had at last come to terms with the fact it was probably unattractive for him to be seen fawning over young bits of crumpet, but joked he’d still like to whisk young women away for a night of passion if the prying paparazzi couldn’t identify him. ‘If I could slip them out the back entrance wrapped in a blanket, that’s a different story.’

But his role in
Something’s Gotta Give
(2003), a romantic comedy for the Viagra-popping generation, sounded all too familiar: an ageing playboy who enjoys chasing young girls and is scared of commitment. But there’s a neat twist in that he ends up falling in love with the mother of his current girlfriend. As his female foil, director Nancy Meyers pulled off a perfect piece of casting with Diane Keaton. It was Annie Hall versus The Joker. Who would come out on top? The two were old colleagues, of course, having made
Reds
, but Meyers got the feeling they hadn’t seen each other in many years and were catching up. ‘This was a reintroduction into the world of Jack,’ said Diane. ‘This time, I really did get to know him.’ So well, in fact, that rumours flew around of impending romance, something Jack did little to discourage. When one journalist asked, ‘Are you seeing Diane?’ Jack smiled and gave a leering look. ‘She turns into a screaming banshee every night. I couldn’t shut her up.’ Of course, all this love-affair stuff was deliberately stoked up to sell the movie, but the Oscar-winning actress did admit to having the biggest crush on Jack for twenty years. ‘How can you not, even now? He’s irresistible. He’s a once in a lifetime guy.’

Nancy Meyers enjoyed her Jack experience too, impressed particularly by the fact that he read the script every week from beginning to end, just to keep it fresh in his mind, something that she’d never seen any other actor do. It wasn’t the first time they’d met either. Twenty years before Meyers and her sister were eating in a small restaurant when Jack came in and sat right next to them. ‘My sister and I couldn’t eat. She was rummaging through her purse looking for something to calm her down. It was so thrilling to be next to the Big Guy.’

Jack had been working non-stop for almost three years with scarcely a break when Martin Scorsese asked him to play mob boss Frank Costello in his brutal crime drama
The Departed
(2006). Nicholson couldn’t say no and was out ‘to kick this movie in the ass’ by making Costello even more evil and seedy than he was in the script, keen to explore the sexuality of a powerful villain. ‘He’s a mad, bad nut job, so he’s evil sexually too. Fuck ’em, kill ’em, you know.’ In other words, he was out to spice things up a bit – Jack style. That meant in one scene dusting the arse of an actress with cocaine and waving a strap-on dildo poking out of his trousers towards a suitably bewildered Matt Damon. Jack was having a great time, but pity poor old producer Graham King, whose job it was to report back to the studio executives every day. ‘Yeah, shooting is really going well. Oh, and Jack wants to wear a strap-on.’

Damon knew what Jack planned to do. Scorsese had called him the night before. ‘Hello, Matt, it’s Marty, your director. Listen, a little thing about tomorrow, Jack is going to show up with a giant dildo, OK?’ Turning up for work, Damon saw Jack in this trench coat and hat, with the fabled giant dildo. Jack just looked at Damon and said, ‘I just thought the whole thing would be better if I had the dildo on.’

Scorsese pushed Jack to go further, more extreme, and to improvise during shooting. Before one scene, in which Costello interrogates Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, Jack told Scorsese, ‘I don’t think Leo’s scared enough of me. I have to be scarier.’ DiCaprio came in the next day and immediately got nervous. Jack’s hair was all over the place and he was muttering to himself. One of the prop guys came over. ‘Hey, Leo, Jack’s got a fire extinguisher, a bottle of whiskey, matches and a handgun somewhere.’ Such information didn’t help with the nerves. ‘So I sat down at the table not knowing what to expect, and he set the table on fire after pouring whiskey all over the place and stuck a gun in my face.’ That was the take Scorsese kept in the film. ‘This is what happens when you set me loose,’ said Jack.

It was back to comedy next with
The Bucket List
(2007), teaming up with Morgan Freeman as a couple of terminal cancer patients who make a list of things to do before they literally kick the bucket. With the exception of
The Departed
, Jack had been making largely comedy movies, a deliberate strategy and his personal response to the 9/11 tragedy which knocked him out emotionally. Jack didn’t want to make his living any more by depressing people with angst-ridden movies, he wanted to make them smile and in the process maybe found his true calling. ‘I’m going over there to the clowns where I belong.’

What are they gonna say about him? What are they gonna say? That he was a kind man? That he was a wise man? That he had plans? That he had wisdom? Bullshit, man!

After
The Score
, Marlon Brando became increasingly reclusive, scarcely straying from the confines of his home and seeing only a select group of friends, including Johnny Depp, whom he rated as the finest actor of his generation. His primary contact with the outside world continued to be his beloved ham radio and the internet, often going into chat rooms to start arguments.