The Pledge is a 2001 American mystery film directed by Sean Penn. It is based on the 1958 novella Das Versprechen: Requiem auf den Kriminalroman (The Pledge: Requiem for the Detective Novel), by Swiss author Friedrich Dürrenmatt. Dürrenmatt wrote The Pledge to refine the theme he originally developed in the screenplay for the 1958 film Es geschah am hellichten Tag (It Happened in Broad Daylight).

Plot[link]

The film begins with a flashback to an inebriated Police Detective Jerry Black (Jack Nicholson), mumbling incoherently at an unspecified location. The scene then switches to events that precede the opening scene. Jerry is ice fishing, then driving to work. After work, he goes to a restaurant, where the Department has thrown him a retirement party. Police Captain Eric Pollack (Sam Shepard) gives Jerry a gift, a trip to go fishing in Mexico. The party is interrupted by the discovery of a murdered young girl named Ginny. Jerry decides to go with another Detective, Stan Krolak (Aaron Eckhart) to the scene of the crime.

Jerry delivers the bad news to the girl's parents. The mother (Patricia Clarkson) makes Jerry swear on a cross that Ginny had made that Jerry will find the killer. A suspect is found the next day. Stan goes in to interview the suspect, who is a mentally retarded Indian man (Benicio del Toro). The man eventually confesses, but steals one of the deputies' guns and commits suicide with it. To all of the other Detectives, the case is over. But Jerry doesn't think the killer died that night. He is still adamant about his pledge to find the killer, and doesn't go on the fishing trip the department gave to him. Jerry visits the victim's grandmother (Vanessa Redgrave) and is directed there by an older woman. The Grandmother tells Jerry that the girl told many stories, and a later visit to one of her friends reveals that Ginny had a friend she called "The Giant". Jerry sees a picture Ginny drew of the Giant that does not resemble the Indian, and Jerry takes the picture.

Jerry goes to Stan, and asks him to reopen the case. Stan refuses, but gets Jerry more information about similar cases in the area. Jerry's further investigation leads him to three unsolved and eerily similar cases that the Indian man could not have committed. Jerry presents these cases to Captain Pollack and Stan, who are doubtful. Jerry shows them the picture of Ginny and the Giant. Jerry once again tells them he is adamant about finding the real killer, and leaves. Jerry rents a cabin and spends some time fishing. He notices a gas station near the lake and likes the location so much he asks the owner (Harry Dean Stanton) if he is interested in selling the place. Jerry eventually buys the gas station and moves into the small house behind it. Jerry meets a local bartender named Lori (Robin Wright Penn). He slowly becomes a father figure to her young daughter Chrissy. After Lori has a fight with her ex-husband, she moves in with Jerry.

Soon, Chrissy becomes friends with a local reverend named Gary Jackson (Tom Noonan). Jerry is uncomfortable about this and begins to think Jackson is the killer. Chrissy is shown meeting a man driving a black car with a porcupine hanger on the rear mirror. Chrissy tells this to Jerry, explaining she met a wizard who gave her little porcupine candies and who told her not to tell her parents they met - she figured it was OK to tell Jerry, since he is not her father. Jerry realizes this is the killer and, using Chrissy as bait, Jerry stages an operation, with Stan's help, to catch him in the act.

A car is shown having a porcupine hanger, but it doesn't arrive at where Chrissy is. The woman who directed Jerry to Ginny's grandmother is shown searching for a certain "Oliver", and it is suggested this Oliver is the killer. After hours of waiting, Stan and the other Police leave. They tell Lori what happened, and, after racing to the place, Lori screams at Jerry about letting her daughter be in danger. The car that was shown approaching is seen destroyed in a car accident and while there is deliberate equivocation regarding the dead occupant it can be surmised it was the killer. Jerry is then seen as he is now, mumbling and talking to himself in front of the now defunct gas station, clearly distraught and now unbalanced by the turn of events, unaware of the implied fate of the killer.

Cast[link]

• Jack Nicholson as Jerry Black
• Patricia Clarkson as Margaret Larsen
• Benicio del Toro as Toby Jay Wadenah
• Aaron Eckhart as Stan Krolak
• Helen Mirren as Doctor
• Tom Noonan as Gary Jackson
• Robin Wright Penn as Lori
• Vanessa Redgrave as Annalise Hansen
• Mickey Rourke as Jim Olstad
• Sam Shepard as Eric Pollack
• Harry Dean Stanton as Floyd Cage
• Dale Dickey as Strom
• Costas Mandylor as Monash Deputy
• Michael O'Keefe as Duane Larsen
• Lois Smith as Helen Jackson
• Brittany Tiplady as Becky Fiske
• Eileen Ryan as Jean

Production[link]

The film was shot mainly on location in the British Columbia interior. While the opening scenes were filmed in Reno, Nevada, the rest of the film was shot in Keremeos, Princeton, Hedley, Merritt and Lytton, all in British Columbia.

Response[link]

Critical response to The Pledge was generally favorable; it holds a 79% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.^[1] Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half stars out of four, writing: "The last third of the movie is where most police stories go on autopilot, with obligatory chases, stalkings and confrontations. That's when The Pledge grows most compelling. Penn and Nicholson take risks with the material and elevate the movie to another, unanticipated, haunting level."^[2] James Berardinelli gave The Pledge three stars, calling it "clever in the way that it gradually reveals things, but never gives us too much information at one time."^[3] The film did not fare particularly well at the box office.^[4][5] Its domestic receipts grossed approximately $19 million USD, with foreign receipts adding another $9 million.^[6][7]

Accolades[link]

• Sean Penn - Palme d'Or at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival^[8] - NOMINATED
• 2002 for the Danish Bodil - NOMINATED
• Benicio Del Toro - 2002 ALMA Award - NOMINATED
• Brittany Tiplady - 2002 Young Artist Award - NOMINATED
• Hans Zimmer - 2001 World Soundtrack Award - NOMINATED

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• The Pledge at the Internet Movie Database
• The Pledge at AllRovi
• The Pledge at Box Office Mojo
• The Pledge at Rotten Tomatoes

Look up pledge in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Pledge may refer to:

Promises[link]

• A promise similar to an oath
• A promise to donate funds, as in a pledge drive
• Taxpayer Protection Pledge, a promise by politicians to oppose tax increases
  • The Pledge (New Hampshire), a similar promise first used in New Hampshire
• Pledge of Allegiance, an oath of loyalty to the United States
• Singapore National Pledge, an oath of allegiance to Singapore
• A commitment to abstain from alcohol, popularized by Theobold Mathew and currently in use by Hope UK

Media[link]

• The Pledge (film), a 2001 mystery directed by Sean Penn
• The Pledge: Requiem for the Detective Novel, a novella by Friedrich Dürrenmatt
• "The Pledge (Remix)", a song by Ja Rule on the album The Last Temptation
• The Pledge, the working title of A Gunfighter's Pledge, a 2008 TV Western film starring Luke Perry

Other uses[link]

• Pledge (law), also called a pawn, a deposit of personal property to a creditor
• H.S. Pledge & Sons Ltd, a milling business
• Toast (honor), a ritual in which a drink is taken
• Pledge (brand), a cleaning product made by S. C. Johnson & Son
• A prospective member of a fraternity or sorority
• Pledge Algorithm, a maze solving algorithm

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Not to be confused with Nicholas Jackson

Jack Nicholson
Nicholson at Dennis Hopper's Hollywood Walk of Fame Star ceremony, March 26, 2010
Born	John Joseph Nicholson (1937-04-22) April 22, 1937 (age 75) New York City, New York, U.S.
Residence	Hollywood Hills, California
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Actors Studio
Occupation	actor, director, producer, screenwriter
Years active	1958–present
Home town	Neptune City, New Jersey
Spouse	Sandra Knight (1962–1968)
Children	4 (including Lorraine Nicholson)

John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. His twelve Oscar nominations make him the second most nominated actor of all time, behind only Meryl Streep, and tied with Katharine Hepburn.

Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and for As Good as It Gets. He also won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the 1983 film Terms of Endearment. He is tied with Walter Brennan for most acting wins by a male actor (three). Nicholson is well known for playing villainous roles such as Jack Torrance in The Shining, Frank Costello in The Departed, and the Joker in 1989's Batman, among many other roles.

Nicholson is one of only two actors who have been nominated for an Academy Award for acting in every decade from the 1960s to 2000s; the other is Michael Caine. He has won seven Golden Globe Awards, and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2001. In 1994, he became one of the youngest actors to be awarded the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award. Notable films in which he has starred include Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Passenger, The Shining, Reds, Terms of Endearment, Batman, A Few Good Men, As Good as It Gets, About Schmidt, The Departed and Anger Management .

Early life[link]

Nicholson was born in St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City,^{[citation needed]} the son of a showgirl, June Frances Nicholson (stage name June Nilson).^[1][2] June had married Italian American showman Donald Furcillo (stage name Donald Rose) six months earlier in Elkton, Maryland, on October 16, 1936.^[3] Furcillo was already married. Although he reportedly offered to take care of the child, June's mother Ethel insisted that she bring up the baby, partly so that June could pursue her dancing career. Although Furcillo claimed to be Nicholson's father and to have committed bigamy by marrying June, biographer Patrick McGilligan asserted in Jack's Life that Latvian-born Eddie King (originally Edgar A. Kirschfeld),^[4] June's manager, may have been Nicholson's biological father. Other sources suggest June Nicholson was unsure of who the father was.^[1] Nicholson's mother was of Irish, English, and Pennsylvania Dutch descent,^[5][6] though he and his family reportedly self-identified as Irish.^[7][8]

Nicholson was brought up believing that his grandparents, John Joseph Nicholson (a department store window dresser in Manasquan, New Jersey) and Ethel May (née Rhoads, a hairdresser, beautician and amateur artist in Manasquan), were his parents. Nicholson only discovered that his "parents" were actually his grandparents and his sister was in fact his mother in 1974, after a journalist for TIME magazine who was doing a feature on Nicholson informed him of the fact.^[9] By this time, both his mother and grandmother had died (in 1963 and 1970, respectively). Nicholson has stated he does not know who his biological father is, saying "Only Ethel and June knew and they never told anybody",^[9] and has chosen not to have a DNA test or to pursue the matter.

Nicholson grew up in Neptune City, New Jersey.^[10] He was raised in his mother's Roman Catholic religion.^[5][7] Before starting high school, his family moved to an apartment in Spring Lake, New Jersey.^[11][12] "Nick", as he was known to his high school friends, attended nearby Manasquan High School, where he was voted "class clown" by the Class of 1954. He was in detention every day for a whole school year.^{[citation needed]} A theatre and a drama award at the school are named in his honor. In 2004, Nicholson attended his 50-year high school reunion accompanied by his aunt Lorraine.^[4]

Career[link]

Early work[link]

Nicholson as Wilbur Force in The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

When Nicholson first came to Hollywood, he worked as a gofer for animation legends William Hanna and Joseph Barbera at the MGM cartoon studio. Seeing his talent as an artist, they offered Nicholson a starting level position as an animation artist. However, citing his desire to become an actor, he declined.^[13]

He made his film debut in a low-budget teen drama The Cry Baby Killer, in 1958, playing the title role. For the following decade, Nicholson was a frequent collaborator with the film's producer, Roger Corman. Corman directed Nicholson on several occasions, most notably in The Little Shop of Horrors, as masochistic dental patient Wilbur Force, and also in The Raven, The Terror, and The St. Valentine's Day Massacre. He worked frequently with director Monte Hellman as well on low-budget westerns, though two in particular, Ride in the Whirlwind and The Shooting, initially failed to find interest from any US film distributors but gained cult success on the art house circuit in France and were later sold to television.

Rise to fame[link]

With his acting career heading nowhere, Nicholson seemed resigned to a career behind the camera as a writer/director. His first real taste of writing success was the LSD-fueled screenplay for the 1967 film, The Trip (directed by Corman), which starred Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper. Nicholson also co-wrote, with Bob Rafelson, the movie Head, which starred The Monkees. In addition, he also arranged the movie's soundtrack. However, after a spot opened up in Fonda and Hopper's Easy Rider, it led to his first big acting break. Nicholson played hard-drinking lawyer George Hanson, for which he received his first Oscar nomination. The part of Hanson was a lucky break for Nicholson—the role had in fact been written for actor Rip Torn, who was a close friend of screen writer Terry Southern, but Torn withdrew from the project after a bitter argument with the film's director Dennis Hopper, during which the two men almost came to blows.^[14] In interview, Nicholson later acknowledged the importance of being cast in Easy Rider: "All I could see in the early films, before Easy Rider, was this desperate young actor trying to vault out of the screen and create a movie career."^[15]

A Best Actor nomination came the following year for his persona-defining role in Five Easy Pieces (1970). Also that year, he appeared in the movie adaptation of On A Clear Day You Can See Forever, although most of his performance was left on the cutting room floor. Jack was the first choice to play the role of Father Damien Karras in The Exorcist, but the role was turned over to Jason Miller.

Other Nicholson roles included Hal Ashby's The Last Detail (1973), for which he was awarded Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival, and the classic Roman Polanski noir thriller, Chinatown (1974). Nicholson was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for both films. Nicholson was friends with the director long before the death of Polanski's wife, Sharon Tate, at the hands of the Manson Family, and supported him in the days following the deaths.^[16][17] After Tate's death, Nicholson began sleeping with a hammer under his pillow,^[17] and took breaks from work to attend the Manson trial.^[18] It was at Nicholson's home where the rape case for which Polanski was arrested occurred. Nicholson would go on to star in The Who's Tommy (1975), directed by Ken Russell, and Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger (1975).

Nicholson (right) and Dennis Hopper at the 62nd Academy Awards, March 26, 1990

Nicholson earned his first Best Actor Oscar for portraying Randle P. McMurphy in the movie adaptation of Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, directed by Miloš Forman in 1975. His Oscar was matched when Louise Fletcher received the Best Actress Award for her portrayal of Nurse Ratched. After this, he began to take more unusual roles. He took a small role in The Last Tycoon, opposite Robert De Niro. He took a less sympathetic role in Arthur Penn's western The Missouri Breaks, specifically to work with Marlon Brando. He followed this by making his second directorial effort with the western comedy Goin' South. His first movie as a director was a 1971 quirky release called Drive, He Said.^{[citation needed]}

Although he garnered no Academy Award for Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining (1980), it remains one of his more significant roles. His second Oscar, the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, came for his role of retired astronaut Garrett Breedlove in Terms of Endearment (1983), directed by James L. Brooks. Nicholson continued to work prolifically in the 1980s, starring in such films as The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), Reds (1981), Prizzi's Honor (1985), The Witches of Eastwick (1987), Broadcast News (1987), and Ironweed (1987). Three Oscar nominations also followed (Reds, Prizzi's Honor, and Ironweed).

Nicholson introduced several acts at Live Aid at the JFK Stadium in July 1985. He turned down the role of John Book in Witness.^[19] The 1989 Batman movie, wherein Nicholson played the psychotic murderer and villain, The Joker, was an international smash hit, and a lucrative percentage deal earned Nicholson about $60 million. For his role as hot-headed Col. Nathan R. Jessep in A Few Good Men (1992), a movie about a murder in a U.S. Marine Corps unit, Nicholson received yet another Academy nomination. This film contained the court scene in which Nicholson famously explodes, "You can't handle the truth!", in one of the Aaron Sorkin-penned monologues to become part of popular culture.^{[citation needed]}

In 1996, Nicholson collaborated once more with Batman director Tim Burton on Mars Attacks!, pulling double duty as two contrasting characters, President James Dale and Las Vegas property developer Art Land. At first studio executives at Warner Bros. disliked the idea of killing off Nicholson's character, so Burton created two characters and killed them both off. Not all of Nicholson's performances have been well received. He was nominated for Razzie Awards as worst actor for Man Trouble (1992) and Hoffa (1992). However, Nicholson's performance in Hoffa also earned him a Golden Globe nomination.^{[citation needed]}

Nicholson went on to win his next Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Melvin Udall, a mean-spirited, compulsive obsessive neurotic author in As Good as It Gets (1997), again directed by Brooks. His Oscar was matched with the Academy Award for Best Actress for Helen Hunt as a Manhattan waitress drawn into a love/hate friendship with Udall, a frequent diner in the restaurant in which she worked. In 2001, Nicholson was the first actor to receive the Stanislavsky Award at the Moscow International Film Festival for "conquering the heights of acting and faithfulness".^{[citation needed]}

2002–present[link]

Jack Nicholson at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival

In About Schmidt (2002), Nicholson portrayed a retired Omaha, Nebraska actuary who questions his own life following his wife's death. His quietly restrained performance earned him an Academy Award Nomination for Best Actor. In Anger Management (2003), he plays an aggressive therapist assigned to help overly pacifist Adam Sandler. In 2003, Nicholson also starred in Something's Gotta Give, as an aging playboy who falls for the mother (Diane Keaton) of his young girlfriend.

In late 2006, Nicholson marked his return to the "dark side" as Frank Costello, a sadistic Boston Irish Mob boss presiding over Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning The Departed, a remake of Andrew Lau's Infernal Affairs.

In November 2006, Nicholson began filming his next project, Rob Reiner's The Bucket List, a role for which he shaved his head. The film starred Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as dying men who fulfill their list of goals. The film was released on December 25, 2007 (limited), and January 11, 2008 (wide). In researching the role, Nicholson visited a Los Angeles hospital to see how cancer patients coped with their illnesses. His last film role to date saw him reunite with Terms of Endearment and As Good as It Gets director James L. Brooks for a small supporting role as Paul Rudd's father in How Do You Know.

Personal life[link]

Family and relationships[link]

Nicholson in 2008

Nicholson has been romantically linked to numerous actresses and models, including Michelle Phillips, Bebe Buell, and Lara Flynn Boyle. Nicholson's longest relationship was for 16 years with actress Anjelica Huston, daughter of film director John Huston, from 1973 to 1989. However, the relationship ended when the media reported that Rebecca Broussard had become pregnant with Nicholson's child. Nicholson and Broussard had two children together, Lorraine (born 1990) and Raymond Nicholson (born 1992). Nicholson's other children are Jennifer (born 1963 with Sandra Knight) and Honey Hollman (b. 1981 with Winnie Hollman). Actress Susan Anspach contends that her son, Caleb Goddard (born 1970), was fathered by Nicholson, though he is not convinced he is the father.^[20][21]

Celebrity friendships[link]

Nicholson lived next door to Marlon Brando for a number of years on Mulholland Drive in Beverly Hills. Warren Beatty also lived nearby, earning the road the nickname "Bad Boy Drive". After Brando's death in 2004, Nicholson purchased his neighbor's bungalow for $6.1 million, with the purpose of having it demolished. Nicholson stated that it was done out of respect to Brando's legacy, as it had become too expensive to renovate the "derelict" building which was plagued by mold.^[22]

Nicholson shared a friendship with author-journalist Hunter S. Thompson, described in Thompson's autobiography "Kingdom of Fear" where, according to Thompson, they would exchange "bizarre" presents which resulted in a perceived assassination attempt against the actor. Thompson appeared outside Nicholson's home on the night of Nicholson's birthday, having set off a high-powered spotlight and gunfire, playing a tape of animal cries through an amplifier to awaken him. Thompson then left a freshly-cut elk's heart on Nicholson's door as a joke before leaving when it appeared that nobody would exit the house.^[23]Following the death of Thompson in 2005, Nicholson and fellow actors Johnny Depp, John Cusack, and Sean Penn attended the private memorial service in Colorado.^[24]

Hobbies[link]

Nicholson is a fan of the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Lakers. His attendance at Lakers games is legendary, as he is a season ticket holder since 1970 and has held courtside season tickets for the past 25 years at both The Forum and the Staples Center, missing very few games. In a few instances, Nicholson has engaged in arguments with game officials and opposing players, and has even walked onto the court.^[25] His ardent refusal to miss a Lakers home game means that studios are rumored to have to schedule filming around the Lakers home schedule^[25][26] although he disputed this claim in an interview with BBC radio in 2008.^[27]

Nicholson is a collector of 20th century and contemporary art, including the work of Scottish artist Jack Vettriano.^[28]

Honors[link]

Footprints and handprints of Jack Nicholson at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver announced on May 28, 2008, that Nicholson would be inducted into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts. The induction ceremony took place on December 15, 2008, where he was inducted alongside 11 other legendary Californians.^{[citation needed]}

In 2010, Nicholson was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.^[29]

In 2011, Nicholson received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Brown University at its two hundred and forty-third commencement. At the ceremony Ruth Simmons, Brown University's president, called him, "the most skilled actor of our lifetime."^[30]

Academy Awards history[link]

	Academy Award portal
	Film portal

With twelve nominations (eight for Best Actor and four for Best Supporting Actor), Jack Nicholson is the most nominated male actor in Academy Awards history. Only Nicholson and Michael Caine have been nominated for an acting (lead or supporting) Academy Award in five different decades: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s (decade). With three Oscar wins, he also ties with Walter Brennan for the second highest-number of Oscar wins in acting categories (all of Brennan's wins, however, were for Best Supporting Actor).

At the 79th Academy Awards, Nicholson had fully shaved his hair for his role in The Bucket List. Those ceremonies represented the seventh time he has presented the Academy Award for Best Picture (1972, 1977, 1978, 1990, 1993, 2006, and 2007). Nicholson is an active and voting member of the Academy. During the last decade he has attended almost every ceremony, whether nominated or not, sitting in the front row.

Filmography[link]

Additionally, in 1999, Nicholson was presented with the Golden Globe's Cecil B. DeMille Award lifetime achievement award.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jack Nicholson

• Jack Nicholson at the Internet Movie Database
• Jack Nicholson at Yahoo! Movies
• Rolling Stone Interview with Jack Nicholson
• Jack Nicholson slideshow at AMCtv.com
• Literature on Jack Nicholson