They Used To Hang People For Having This Much Fun

Nicholson told me this story on a ski lift one day. I myself had been a lifeguard, and we were swapping tales of heroic rescues, as former lifeguards tend to do. What struck me most in the telling of this story was the way Nicholson described himself as a loner, an outsider. Lifeguards, I know from experience, tend to be gregarious. The strong young people I worked with years ago were not being entirely facetious when they referred to themselves as "sun gods." Your average sun god does not like boat duty. He prefers to strut about the beach so that mere mortals may worship.

After a week of hanging around with him, skiing and talking about painters and authors, talking about basketball and film, it occurred to me that, despite his success, despite an Oscar, despite all the producers and directors and other actors who would love to work with him, Jack Nicholson still views himself as an outsider.

The Killer Instinct

The worst celebrity interviews are conducted over lunch in some chic restaurant with the waiter interrupting a prize anecdote to ask who had the fettuccine while the public-relations person across the table is saying, "What Bobby . really meant to say here was ..." Some are held in a mobile home on a movie set. Others happen in desperate motel rooms around the world. Still others are held in the star's home after the cleaning lady has left. This interview was conducted on skis, over a period of several days. It was setup by mutual friends, and Jack called me at home to confirm the date. This is not the way these things are usually done in Hollywood, but it's the way Jack Nicholson seems to do them.

"Do you ski?" he asked.

"Not for several years," I said, "and then not very well."

"You'll do okay."

A few days later, I joined the Crack of Noon Club, an amorphous and informal group that convenes at a certain restaurant near Aspen's Buttermilk Mountain almost every day the snow is good. The restaurant serves good coffee, fresh-squeezed orange juice and the kind of enormous breakfast you want before hitting the slopes at the crack of noon. Membership in the club varies according to who feels like skiing on any particular day. Jack and his longtime companion, Anjelica Huston, are usually present. Sometimes Jimmy and Jane Buffett join them, or producer Lou Adler, or director Bob Rafelson might be there. I met a few instructors, a local racer, one of Jack's buddies who shares his love of basketball and skiing, and Ed Bradley of CBS News, who was taking a short ski vacation.

"Jack," Bradley told me over his third order of sausage, "is of the fugit school. Here's the top of the mountain. There's the bottom. Fugit, let's go."

"Is he good?"

"Pretty good. I'd say his style depends largely on courage."

Promptly at half past the crack of noon, we hit the lifts. When the last of the group arrived at the top of the hill, the Crack of Noon Club suddenly became the Thundering Herd. They all simply took off down the slope like crazed Comanches, whooping for joy and leaving me gasping behind as I executed a large number of cowardly traverses.

Over the next few days, I managed to regain my snow legs to the point that I never completely lost sight of the Thundering Herd. Nicholson congratulated me on my perseverance, if not my technique. Small shows of courage went a long way with the Herd.

Jack himself was not the best technical skier in the group, but I seldom saw him anywhere but in the lead. Occasionally a hotshot would shoot by us, but in general, the rule was "No one passes the Thundering Herd." Nicholson obviously preferred the sides of the runs, where the bumps were fewer and smaller. Moguls annoyed him. He was after speed, and he seldom turned: "Slows you down," he explained.

He would often wait for me at the lift line, and we'd put in twenty minutes of interview time on the chair.

"You have a, uh, unique style," I said.

"Yeah. I'd describe it as massive poetry in motion," Jack said seriously, "though others say it looks like a dogfight rolling down the hill."

"Anjelica is a good athlete. Good technique."

Nicholson graced me with one of his perfect homicidal grins. "Yeah. But she lacks ... the killer instinct." Some time later, I relayed the comment to Anjelica, and she replied with a vigorous masturbatory gesture.

Two things became very apparent, very quickly. One, Jack loved to ski the narrow, raggedy line that divides control from total disaster. Two, he enjoyed skiing with others. He took time out to help Bradley and me, the two weakest skiers in the group. Bradley hadn't skied in years, but he was improving hourly, and Jack, through word and deed, would caution him against the danger and delay of excessive caution.