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Copyright
(c) Eve Berliner 2001. All Rights Reserved. [Terms and Conditions.] Young Jack
Nicholson: Auspicious Beginnings By Eve Berliner
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By Eve Berliner I. Birth The conception took place in an ocean town
along windswept New Jersey shores, an accident of fate between lovers,
Neptune, the god of the sea, peering down on the passionate occurrence on
that sultry July noon of 1936. And thus, Jack Nicholson came into his
spectacular existence. His birth remains an enigma. There is, in fact, no Certificate of
Birth, only a Certificate of a Delayed Report of Birth, filed on May 24,
1954, when Jack was 17 years of age. Issued by the New Jersey State
Department of Health, State Registrar of Vital Statistics, the document
reports that John Joseph Nicholson, Jr. was born on April 22, 1937 to Ethel
M. and John Joseph Nicholson in the Township and City of Neptune, County of
Monmouth. Name of Hospital or Institution where the
birth occurred: None. Location of Birth: 1410 Sixth Avenue. The signature of the affiant is Ethel M.
Nicholson, age 56 -- Relationship to Child: Mother -- whose own address at
the time of birth is reported as 1410 Sixth Avenue, Neptune, New Jersey. The document attests that her infant son,
John Joseph Nicholson, Jr., was born at home. In point of fact, John Joseph Nicholson,
Jr. was born at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City and since no record
of this event is to be found in New York City birth archives, it is likely
that he was born, his father was to speculate, under a cousin's name. For the record, Jack Nicholson does not
exist. * * * She was at a scintillating peak that
spring of 1936 with her beautiful Irish fire, June Nicholson, at 17 years of
age, a showgirl with the renowned Earl Carroll Dancers, and imbued with a
dark, mesmerizing older man. And as the steaming locomotive pulled out
of Pennsylvania Station, travelling south to Washington, D.C., on across to
Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and ending up in Dallas, Texas, June changing
trains six times, the stream of love letters begin and the love affair
unfolds: Mr. Don Furcillo, Heck Avenue, Ocean
Grove, May 13, 1936: "Don, have
just a moment but want you to know I'm thinking of you. Love Dink." Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. "Left New
York at 12:00 p.m. Reached Washington at 7 a.m. Miss you terribly, will write
later...Love, Dinky" And on the elegant, silken stationery of
the Melrose Hotel, Oak Lawn and Cedar Springs, Dallas, Texas, May 14, 1936.
Thursday morning: "Donnie
Dear....The people we are working for are just grand. They are paying all our
expenses until we open which is May 27th and I mean they are treating us
really fine....The club where we are working is one of the swankiest here in
Dallas. "So all in
all there's only one thing missing and that's you. I miss you so much Snooky
Puss.... "How is
mother, Don? Please go up and see her and make her feel good for my sake once
in awhile as she loves to see you. Do this for me and also keep your eye on
Lorraine." French Casino, Dallas, Texas: "Dear Don:
Who is she anyway? Do I know her? Could you at least make an excuse and take
time out to drop me a line once in awhile? "Have you been
over to see Mother? Write and tell me exactly how she is.... I didn't want to
miss a day dropping you a line so that you will have to answer. Lots of love
for you. June." Melrose Hotel, May 12, 1936: "My Dearest
Snookypuss: I was thinking of you all day and just imagining what we would
have been doing if I were home.... "We have
been rehearsing very hard as the opening is drawing near....It is very sweet
of you to keep my mother happy as by her letters I judge that she would like
me home." Melrose Hotel, May 26: "Well
tomorrow night is the big night and Dallas is going to see the biggest, best,
classiest stuff it has ever seen....and when that show opens we're going to
give them excitement that they'll never forget. "Everybody
is just all in working day and night....We have a dress rehearsal tonight
which means we'll be up all night and no sleep so thought I had better get
this off while I'm still alive. "As always,
Dink."
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Don Furcillo, with his carved Neapolitan
face, powerful eyes, Italian nobility in his blood, and it showed in his
bearing, his dark magnetism. June spotted him dancing at the Whitesville Fire
Company with several other women and she was smitten. At age 27, Don Furcillo, a young
entrepreneur and amateur vaudevillian himself, was married to but
separated from Anne Born, a minister's daughter, as they awaited an
annulment of their marriage -- for some years to come -- from the Catholic
Church. It was just after his return from Florida,
the separation now for almost a year, that Don fell madly for June. Don
assumed naturally that she was a young woman in her twenties, her career well
established -- the Earl Carroll Vanities acclaimed worldwide.
June had also been on the road with Moe Morton and His Revue, and even
played straight lady to the comic slapstick of Pinky Lee. Western Union! Collect from Ft. Wayne,
Indiana to Don Furcillo. "Need
thirty dollars immediately to get home. Don't mention anything to Mud. Will
explain when I get home. You are the only one I can turn to. Wire on Western
Union, Hotel Baltes, Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Love, Dink" Receipt for Telegraphic Money Order, June
27, 1936. "Received
from Don Furcillo Thirty-Five Dollars to be paid to June Nilson at Ft. Wayne,
Indiana." [Nilson, June's stage name] - Signed: "The Western Union
Telegram Company." June was coming home. A strike had erupted
at the hotel. The booking was cancelled. It was to be a summer of love in the
afternoon -- away from the watchful eye of her mother -- and red hot weekends
dancing at the Monterrey Hotel in Asbury Park, her solo tap act a
showstopper! And as fate would have it, something
extraordinary occurred. The twosome became a foursome, a wonderful foursome
of two brothers and two sisters -- Don and June and Vic and Lorraine -- Lorraine,
June's pouty, befreckled kid sister, age 14, and Don's striking younger
brother Victor, who would die so tragically, so young, but whose own close
relationship with Lorraine was to endure for some years to come. The summer of '36: The photographs tell
the tale. June and Don hugging on Bradley Beach, mugging for the camera.
Lorraine and Vic. Two pairs of lovebirds playing affectionately on the beach.
The Nicholson women -- Lorraine, Mud (short for Mudder which was short
for Mother [Mrs. Nicholson] ( a comic invention of June's) and June,
sitting on the sideboard of an imposing automobile of the era. The Nicholson
women entwined in Mud's arms on the sands of Bradley Beach. * * * By October, the devastating news could no
longer be denied. June was three months pregnant! The marriage was largely a symbolic union, if not ultimately a legal one. Don was by law a married man, subject to the laws of bigamy. June was |
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underage and utilized a false name on the
document. The Certificate of Marriage, its parchment
frayed, yellowed with the passing of time, a delicate floral pattern faintly
visible, bears testimony to the union. "This is
to Certify that on the 16th day of October in the year of our Lord 1936, Mr.
Donald Furcillo of Ocean Grove, New Jersey and Miss June Nilson of Neptune,
New Jersey were by me united in Marriage at 102 Delaware Avenue, Elkton,
Maryland, according to the ordinance of God and the laws of the State of
Maryland." Mary Schaeffer
and John Crawford, Witnesses. Rev. Walter
Schaeffer officiating. Elkton, Maryland, like Las Vegas, Nevada,
was a town notorious for its quickie marriages. Don paid ten dollars at the
local courthouse to a gentleman who put him in touch with the Rev. Schaeffer
to whom Don, explaining the circumstances surrounding the nuptials, paid
twenty dollars to keep it out of the newspapers. The marriage was performed
and effectively buried by Rev. Schaeffer, who saw fit not to file the
certificate in Elkton marriage archives (unbeknownst to Don, who feared
prosecution for bigamy until the statute of limitations ran out years later). And If technically Jack Nicholson is a bastard,
it was not so in the hearts of his mother and father. For Mrs. Nicholson, the news of June's
pregnancy was a devastation, the overwhelming shame of illegitimacy, the
years of hard work and sacrifice dreaming for her daughter, the years of
lessons, her own dreams for herself submerged as she fought for her children. Three days following the marriage, October
19, 1936, on the stationery of the Lord Baltimore Hotel: "Donny
dear, just a short note this morning to let you know I'm thinking of you
every minute and that I still love you.... "I am
through here Wednesday night and we'll leave immediately after the last show
for home...Don't think anything wrong...I shall be thinking of you and
missing you terribly. Loads of love, June." Second communique of the day, State
Theatre, Baltimore, Maryland, October 19, 1936: "Donny
dear...I hope you still love me and don't feel bitter about things and
nothing can ever change my feelings towards you. I shall always love you
because it is something that I didn't realize at first, something that has
grown to be a part of me. "But then
there is one obligation I have to fulfill and that is to my mother, Donny,
and when that is done then I shall have my life to live. "Please try
to understand my point darling and help me, want me to get ahead for her
sake...so until tomorrow, all my love to you, June" |
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* * * And so the Nicholson family myth was
perpetrated. Mrs. Nicholson would claim the baby as her
own and husband John's. The child was never to know June was its
mother. The relationship between Don and June
would be severed. June would be quietly dispatched to a
cousin's house in New York for the period of gestation and subsequent birth. And thus, a conspiracy of silence was
launched that was not to end until Jack Nicholson was 37 years of age, the
year 1974, when Jack, working on the set of The Fortune with his friend
Mike Nichols, is summoned to the telephone by a newspaper reporter from The
Asbury Park Press, his hometown paper, and the incomprehensible bombshell
is dropped that his beloved June is not his sister but his mother, and
Ethel Nicholson, is not his mother but his grandmother -- June long
gone by this time, having perished at age 44 in 1963, a victim of cancer; Mud
gone too, having passed away in January of 1970, just missing Jack's meteoric
rise to fame four months hence. They had taken the secret to their graves. And the late John Joseph Nicholson, the
shadowy figure little Jackie would somehow always address as Jack and never
Dad, was in truth his grandfather; his father was a stranger named Don
Furcillo Rose. And so it was to come as a stunning revelation,
Jack reeling, still reeling from the deceit, the pain of it, and something
broke apart in his heart, Jack grappling still grappling with the shock to
this hard day.
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