Customer Reviews

Jack: The Great Seducer

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"Jack: The Great Seducer" offers an excellent chronological and referenced account of his interworkings with the women in his life and career.

The book itself offers one new revelation I was unaware of in the likes of Cynthia Basinet. Depicted as one of Jack's gals and downplayed as an "aspiring singer", I found her compassion, courage, insight, and humor within what seems to have been a geninue love affair to be inspiring. Cynthia is a single mom who took to assisting W. Sahara refugees after separating from the actor. Upon further research, I discovered Miss Basinet single-handedly transformed her career as a successful model/actress into a recording artist with a philanthropic platform with no apparent assistance from JN. Her rendition of "Santa Baby" was originally recorded for Jack as a Christmas gift, and has gone on to become a Holiday favorite. It's the version often thought to be Marilyn Monroe, which appears in the 2003 film "Party Monster".

On the surface, the book resonates as a rah-rah "harem" lifestyle most men only fantasize about, however as I gave it more thought I couldn't help but wonder: where is the love?

as a casual movie goer who is no specialist on Jack's romantic and professional history, I found this to be a very comprehensive, continuously enlightening tour through all that he's accomplished in his amazing private and public life... although I couldn't help but be familiar with his reputation as the consumate rogue, I had no idea of the staggering quantity (and quality) of his conquests and of the 8 kids he's fathered and what's become of so many figures in his life... a very enjoyable read...

This was nothing near being a biography. It was just a book full of episodes in Jack N's life that were taken from various magazine/newspaper/media articles - things everyone already knew about him - nothing new or personal things about him - usually what a biography exposes. I found it very ho-hum.

For instance we learn that Nicholson was taught acting by veteran film and tv actor Jeff Corey. It gives a little vague when it describes exactly what kind of actor Nicholson is. Corey mostly taught Nicholson method acting but for some films like The Shining Nicholson was more old fashioned theatrically in his approach. We learn many more things about JN like that that Nicholson gave up being an actor for a while (I often wondered why Nicholson wrote Head for the Monkees)then he was brought back. I'm more interested in the book when it's
on Jn's acting career than personal life though they do intertwine a lot. If you want my opinion this book leaves me with the opinion that Nicholson is a little too clickish in who he works for. Director Bob Raffleson or Diane Keaton or with John and Angelica Huston (before JH died that is) and so on. But come to think of it most actors who are famous are somewhat clickish(John Wayne was with John Ford a lot in movies to give another example).

There's not much to say about this book other than it's a compliation of everything the author read with a few recent interviews sprinkled in.

Like a previous reviewer, I lost interest (starting with Chapter 2) when I saw that it was one quote after another. When I looked at the Bibliography to see the sources and saw Mike Walker's gossip column in The National Enquirer as a source, as well as other tabloids, I figured the book wasn't worth the time considering how "accurate" those tabloids are (The Enquirer *can* get it right more often than other tabloids, sure, but a book needs more solid sources than tabloids!).

I have always had the greatest respect for Nicholson's acting ability. Numerous times in the past, I've read about how he is the consummate professional: He gets on a set and knows his lines (*and* yours!), does what he has to do and leaves. (*That's* the mark of a professional!!!)

The title says it all: The focus is more on Nicholson's personal life rather than his professional life. I find him fascinating (and, yes, unbelievably sexy at his age!) and believe his accomplishments are just as, if not, more interesting (and important) than his personal liasons.

This doesn't do Jack justice and the fact the author hides behind a pseudonym really sucks.

"...pseudonym of a well known biographer." This is quite funny from the start, I mean what's the deal-- the author is afraid of getting a hit put on him? The depth of his writing reminds one of writing for Entertainment Weekly...There is not much new here...most of the revealing stuff is by an ex-babe of Jack's, one that was part of his harem...her name Cynthia Basinet..an aspiring singer..the book could have benefitted by reducing her quotes to two paragraphs instead of four pages..but her dippy LA shop talk really is annoying -- particularly at the end of the book where she is quoted unmercifully..The author does an admirable job of taking the print media headlines/stories on Nicholson from the past and boiling them down to Jack's real and silver screen loves..most of the text follows the chronology of his acting career interspersed with purple passioned agendas from ex-lovers/wives who have an axe to grind...Somehow Jack bringing home some left over Mexican food is painted as cheap..when actually it reflects just a regular person (at least in that regard). The prose is light and entertaining like an article in TV Guide.. The book is not a Goldman style trash job..Jack gets more than his fair share of sexual accolades and acting attributes...towards the 90's section of his movie career, the writer just writes off most of his movies...perhaps the editor said this book is too long, so cut out all this stuff about movies no one remembers...on that list are a variety of off the wall efforts, some to be dismissed, but others are true classics like the modern day film noir, Blood and Wine...and Wolf had a lot of merit but was flawed by the superficial comic book special effects.....His dismissal of the 80's The Postman Rings Twice is also off the mark...The book hangs too much on the standard psycho babble explanation that Jack's relationships with women are derivative of his deception about his parenting...He was well set in his personna before that information was revealed....So there is really little news here...The book is essentially about Hollywood perception: salacious, money based, shallow and entertaining..It does not go any deeper...and if you look at Nicholson's career--he has assailed the obvious, cashed in on the medium and ridden the pathway of artistic vision...so f*** em..