Jack Nicholson discovers that his sister is actually his mother. understand

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Not only did Nicholson play George Hanson in the hit movie Easy Rider (1969), he was 32 years old when he discovered hidden information about his identity. It was something that had already aroused suspicion many years earlier, in 1954, when he tried to get a driver’s license and learned that there was no record of his birth. Later, Ethel May, the woman he believed to be his mother, provided evidence that her “son” was born on April 22, 1937.

“It clarified a lot of things for me.”

Everything changed in 1974, when, while researching a documentary about the actor, a Time magazine reporter revealed the truth over the phone. The reporter asked about his mother, June Nicholson. In that moment, Jack had to confront the woman he had always seen as his sister. The truth was that June had given birth to him at the age of 17, and his parents, Ethel May and John, decided to raise him as their own to avoid social prejudice and allow June to pursue an artistic career without the burden of motherhood. His grandmother, Ethel May, the woman he believed to be his mother, had died in 1963.

He wanted to keep the matter secret, but the documentary “Dr. Jack and Mr. Nicholson” ended up exposing the secret. However, over time, Nicholson accepted his origins. “After all, when I found out who my mother was, I had already matured psychologically. In fact, it clarified a lot for me. If I felt anything, it was mainly gratitude,” he confessed years later.

In a 1984 Rolling Stone interview, he added: “If June and Ethel had been smaller, I might not have survived at all. They gave me the gift of life. They raised me well. To this day, I have never borrowed a penny from anyone, and I have never felt unable to take care of myself. They have made my self-sufficiency essential.”

The actor’s father remains unknown

Despite discovering part of his story, Nicholson still doesn’t know who his father is at age 88. The biography “The Life of Jack,” written by American author Pat McGilligan, lists two possible candidates: Don Frusillo-Rose, an Italian impresario and singer whom June married shortly before Jack’s birth, and June’s dance partner, actor Eddie King.

Before Don died in 1998, he asked his daughter Donna Rose to continue his “campaign” to be recognized as her Hollywood star father. As a result, Donna published a book called “Don’t Know Jack: The Story of an Excluded Father” in 2001, but died of cancer in 2005 without receiving any response from Nicholson.