Book excerpt: “Jack’s Life feels true. . . . Fascinating.”—Entertainment Weekly Jack Nicholson has lived large on and off the screen. Patrick McGilligan, one of America’s outstanding film biographers, has plumbed research and interviews to expand his definitive biography since its publication twenty years ago. Jack’s Life captures the essence of this most private and public of stars with a vivid depiction of Nicholson’s tangled Dickensian upbringing, his hungry years as actor and writer, his nearaccidental breakthrough in Easy Rider, and his prolificacy and artistry ever since, with roles in Chinatown, Five Easy Pieces, The Shining, A Few Good Men, As Good As It Gets, and The Departed, to name a beloved handful of his sixty-plus films. McGilligan captures the life and legacy of this unabashed and complex personality