Jack Nicholson’s Love Life: Anjelica Huston’s ’70s Romance to Lara Flynn Boyle’s ’00s Tabloid Drama
The star was only married once, but his many affairs are the stuff of Hollywood legend
Jack Nicholson will forever be known as one of the ultimate wild men of Hollywood, so it’s no surprise that the award-winning star of Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Shining has had a chaotic personal life featuring many an A-list fling and six children born to five different women.
Read on for a look back at some of the many ladies in the retired screen icon’s life, along with what he had to say about them.
Jack Nicholson’s first (and only!) marriage to Sandra Knight
In 1962, before he became a household name, Jack Nicholson married Sandra Knight, his costar in the low-budget 1963 horror movie The Terror. They had a daughter, Jennifer, who dabbled in acting and set design and became a fashion designer, and divorced in 1968. While Nicholson would go on to have five more children over the years, he never married again, and became known as one of the film industry’s most notorious bachelors.
Nicholson’s only marriage didn’t last, but his ex-wife looked back on it fondly, telling Closer, “The real Jack is a loving, caring, giving person. We had a very beautiful, sweet marriage.”
Jack Nicholson’s ‘Five Easy Pieces’ fling with Susan Anspach
Nicholson had an affair with Susan Anspach, his costar in the 1970 film Five Easy Pieces, and she became pregnant with their son, Caleb, during filming. Nicholson denied paternity, and Anspach married Lost in Space actor Mark Goddard, who became Caleb’s legal father.
For decades, Nicholson refused to claim Caleb as his biological son, but in a 1998 Rolling Stone interview, he revealed, “Caleb and I have been getting along beautifully now . . . Having said that, based on the legality—the extremely unpleasant litigious nature of most of my relationships there—I’m not really at liberty to say what I think about it.”
Jack Nicholson’s ‘California Dreamin’’ with Michelle Phillips
In 1971, Nicholson started dating the Mamas & the Papas singer Michelle Phillips, who had an eight-day marriage to his good friend and creative collaborator Dennis Hopper the previous year. They split up in 1972 due to personal difficulties, including Phillips suffering a miscarriage and Nicholson learning that the woman he thought was his late sister was actually his mother, while the woman he thought was his late mother was actually his grandmother.
In a Vanity Fair profile, Phillips claimed that Nicholson’s shocking family revelation made it hard for him to trust women, but even with the drama she endured, she said, “Dear Jack. He was a lovely guy: charming, sweet and fun to be with.”
Jack Nicholson and Anjelica Huston: The Hollywood bad boy’s longest relationship
Nicholson began a relationship with model-turned-actress Anjelica Huston in 1973. The pair met at his birthday party and quickly became inseparable, and were considered one of the reigning It Couples of the decade.
Nicholson and Huston never married or had children (as he put it, “I ask her to get married all the time. Sometimes she turns me down, sometimes she says yes. We don’t get around to it”) but they were together for 17 years, which marked the actor’s longest relationship by far.
Nicholson and Huston received much media attention for their relationship, and they shared the screen in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), Prizzi’s Honor (1985) and The Crossing Guard (1995). Huston earned the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Prizzi’s Honor, and Nicholson said he “never had a greater moment” than watching her win.
Nicholson called Huston “the love of my life” and said, “We’ve striven for a straightforward, honest, yet mature relationship,” but they broke up in 1990 after Huston found out that actress Rebecca Broussard was pregnant with his daughter, Lorraine.
The star also had affairs with other women, including Bond girl Jill St. John and model Winnie Hollman, during his long relationship with Huston. Hollman gave birth to their daughter, Honey, in 1982, though there was later speculation that her biological father was actually producer Lou Adler.
While Nicholson and Huston’s relationship certainly had its share of soap opera-level drama, there were also moments of romance, as Nicholson gave her pet names like “Toots” and “Fab” and showered her with praise and gifts. Ultimately, Huston said Nicholson “wasn’t as obsessed with me as I was with him,” and though the actor said he had “a wonderful relationship” with her, it understandably couldn’t survive the extent of his infidelities.
Jack Nicholson’s ’90s relationship with Rebecca Broussard
Nicholson started seeing model and actress Rebecca Broussard in 1989, while he was still dating Anjelica Huston. They had two children, Lorraine, an actress and writer who has covered her turbulent relationship with her famous father in Vanity Fair, and Ray, an actor who recently appeared in the horror sequel Smile 2.
Nicholson and Broussard broke up in 1994, and he said of their time together, “I didn’t know this was going to totally change my life—it wasn’t like that—but there were definitely sparks, for sure. Certainly, the relationship has been rocky,” and when asked if he was still in love with Broussard following their breakup, he responded, “Of course. I’m still in love with all the women I ever loved.”
That same year, Nicholson had a brief affair with Jennine Gourin, who was working as a waitress. She gave birth to his daughter, Tessa, now an actress and artist, but the relationship didn’t last, and Nicholson has never publicly acknowledged Tessa as his child. In a personal essay published in Newsweek, she pointedly wrote, “Have you ever been on a date and sensed that the other person just wasn’t feeling it? That’s pretty much how every interaction I have ever had with Jack Nicholson has gone.”
Jack Nicholson and Lara Flynn Boyle: The age-gap relationship that dominated ’00s tabloids
Nicholson began dating Twin Peaks actress Lara Flynn Boyle in 1999. Their relationship was covered breathlessly in the tabloids given their sizable age difference and flashy red-carpet appearances, and they were together on and off until 2006.
In a People interview, Boyle revealed that she and Nicholson are still in touch, and said he was, “a huge part of my life,” calling their relationship, “seven years of great times, it’s seven years of wonderful.”
Boyle was also close to Nicholson’s children, Lorraine and Ray, when they were young, and Lorraine recently published a Vanity Fair essay in which she wrote eloquently about the actress’ influence on her life as a girl, saying, “I was a kid who felt, despite everything I had materially, there was something missing in my life. Lara did not belittle these feelings.”
Nicholson retired from acting in 2010, and has kept a relatively low profile since then. While he was rumored to be dating much younger bad girls like model Kate Moss and actress Paz de la Huerta in the ’00s, it’s been years since there’s been an update on the now 87-year-old actor’s love life.
In a 2008 interview, Nicholson admitted, “I’ve been single for quite a long time . . . I like that I can come and go as I like. When I want to leave a party, I leave. But there are nights when anybody who lives alone says ‘Oh, I don’t want to be lonely’ or has all the fears that people have. That’s another way of saying I’m wide open,” but even if he’s currently single, his longtime ladies’ man status remains nearly as iconic as his career.
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