cover image JACK: The Great Seducer: The Life and Many Loves of Jack Nicholson

JACK: The Great Seducer: The Life and Many Loves of Jack Nicholson

Edward Douglas, . . Harper Entertainment, $26.95 (448pp) ISBN 978-0-06-052047-2

Nicholson has already been the subject of nearly a dozen books, most of which are mined thoroughly for information in this latest tell-all. Douglas does little more than update the record established in Patrick McGilligan's standard-setting Jack's Life with a decade's worth of new films and gossip about a stormy relationship with actor Lara Flynn Boyle. Douglas, who claims several previous biographies to his credit but has chosen to publish pseudonymously, did manage to land interviews with B-movie mogul Roger Corman and other members of Nicholson's earliest Hollywood circles that shed light on the actor's start in Hollywood, but he's much more interested in the rambling, self-serving tales he accumulates from recent ex-lovers. Douglas's prose contains all the worst excesses of the celebrity biography genre, yet at least the overabundance of salacious irrelevancies distracts from Douglas's weak efforts at psychoanalysis. Douglas celebrates Nicholson for being "ahead of his time" in front of the camera while condemning his off-screen shortcomings, and the judgmental tone frequently lapses into pure snideness, especially when individual films come under discussion. This is a brazen appeal to the lust for sordid celebrity stories with just enough moralizing so that readers won't feel too cheap and dirty afterward. 8-page b&w photo insert not seen by PW . (On sale Nov. 9)