Anjelica Huston dated Jack Nicholson for 17 years. She says he was a 'world-class philanderer'.

The first time 21-year-old Anjelica Huston clapped eyes on Jack Nicholson, she thought, "Ah! Yes. Now, there's a man you could fall for."

It was early evening in April, 1973, and Huston and her friends were attending Nicholson's 36th birthday party at his house on Mulholland Drive in LA. She had seen him on screen, of course, and was already more than a little in love with him when he opened the front door, flashed his trademark killer smile, and drawled, "Good evening, ladies. I'm Jack, and I'm glad you could make it."

Huston and Nicholson danced and flirted for hours, and later, he asked her to stay the night. She did.

And that was the start of their 17-year long relationship.

A few days after that first night together, Nicholson asked Huston out on a date. 

"Then I got a follow-up call, Jack saying that he was sorry; he had to cancel our date because he had a previous obligation," Huston wrote in her memoir, Watch Me. "'Does that make me a secondary one?' I asked. 'Don't say that', he said. 'It's not witty enough, and derogatory to both of us.'"

That night, Huston was out at dinner with friends when they spotted Nicholson at the restaurant with a "pretty blonde". It turned out to be his ex-girlfriend, actor and singer Michelle Phillips. Since that was the day of their cancelled date, Huston couldn't resist going up to Nicholson's table to let him know she had seen them together.

"As I reached the table, a shadow passed quickly over Jack's face, like a cloud crossing the sun. I lifted my glass airily and said, 'I'm downstairs, and I just thought I'd come up to say hi.' He introduced Michelle, not missing a beat. She was charming. I guess they were at the end of their relationship at that point," Huston wrote.

Despite this rather rough start to their relationship, Nicholson and Huston fell deeply in love. But Huston did not fully comprehend Nicholson's reputation as a "ladies' man" at first.

"It kind of grew over time, I think - that idea of Jack: he's so baaad! Even though Warren Beatty was one of his best friends, I didn't recognise Jack as a world-class philanderer at the time," she wrote. "For as prolific as he seems to have been, and as I have heard reported, he was actually quite discreet. Occasionally, I'd find a piece of female apparel - once a jacket of mine turned up on a girl in the street - or I'd find some hand cream, or a trinket might get left behind in the soap dish. Sometimes I'd take to wearing the jewellery to see if anybody would come up and claim it, but that never happened."

Jack Nicholson and Anjelica Huston attend an event at the Gulf + Western Building in New York City on September 26, 1976. Image: Pierre Schermann/WWD/Penske Media via Getty Images.

Huston also admitted Nicholson would send her mixed messages - he would alternately ask her to stick around or he wouldn't call her; he also told her they should "cool it" followed by a call to ask her out on a date.

In their joint cover story in People magazine in 1985, Nicholson said he asked Huston to marry him "all the time. Sometimes she turns me down, sometimes she says yes, and we don't get around to it. I'm sure at some point - probably."

On the subject of marriage, Huston said, "We both believe in keeping our freedom. If you have a long relationship, as we've had, you go through changes. You want times together and times apart. We see each other when we want to, and at our best. I don't like the word commitment. It has a gloomy sound. When I hear it, I see myself enduring a long dreary ritual. Understanding is a better word than commitment. Jack and I have an understanding."

For years, Huston put her own acting ambitions on hold and devoted her time and attention to Nicholson. But, in 1980, after a serious car accident, she decided she needed to make a change and moved out of Nicholson's house to live on her own. "I went through the windshield and broke my nose in four places and had a long time to look at my life," she told People. "I decided it was time to get down to acting."

Huston was as good as her word. Just six years later, in 1986, she stood on stage at the Academy Awards, accepting the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for 1985's Prizzi's Honor, a film directed by her father, John, and starring her boyfriend, Nicholson, who would later tell Rolling Stone that he'd never had a greater moment than watching Huston win the award.  

That same year, Huston decided it would be a good idea to finally marry Nicholson. She and her friends went out for lunch, had several margaritas, and came up with the idea.

"Everything went according to plan until Jack came downstairs and one of my friends said, 'Go on, Tootie, tell him.' So I told him what we had discussed, and he said, 'Are you serious about this?'" she wrote. "I burst into tears, turned on my heels, and left the house. It was humiliating for both Jack and me."

While visiting her father, Huston told him, "It's Jack. He's unfaithful. It really hurts me. I can't live with it."

Watch Anjelica Huston in 1990's The Witches trailer. Story continues below.

Even though they still talked and attended events together, Huston and Nicholson began to drift apart. Things came to a head in 1989.

After having dinner together one night, Nicholson said to Huston, "I have something to tell you. Someone is gonna have a baby."

Huston asked him if the mother was actress Rebecca Broussard, whom she had seen Nicholson with. He said yes. When she asked if Broussard was going to have the baby and if he was going to "stand by" Broussard, he also responded in the affirmative.

"But I don’t want nothin’ to change," he told Huston.

"There's only room for one of us women in this picture, and I am going to retire from it," Huston replied.

They hugged, and Huston described feeling the "floor dropping out from under me, and some wave of forgiveness, and, finally, the hopelessness of a relationship that's done, flopped, croaked, and over."

Nicholson and Huston pictured in 1984. Image: Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images.

Not long after that, a Playboy article came out, alleging Nicholson had had a romantic encounter with a young woman. Nicholson called Huston to tell her it was "rubbish". They agreed to meet up later that evening.

"When I got to his bungalow, an assistant behind a desk in the reception room asked if she could announce me. I told her that would not be necessary and walked straight into Jack's office. He was coming out of the bathroom when I attacked him. I don't think I kicked him, but I beat him savagely about the head and shoulders. He was ducking and bending, and I was going at him like a prizefighter, raining a vast array of direct punches," Huston wrote in her memoir.

"Finally, I was exhausted. We sat down, and I cried. Then, with renewed effort, I attacked him again. And all the while I felt a strange underlying gratitude to him for allowing me to beat the living hell out of him. Later, in the days that followed, I talked to him on the phone and he said, 'Goddamn, Toots, you sure landed some blows on me. I’m bruised all over my body.' And I said, 'You’re welcome, Jack - you deserved it.' And we laughed. It was tragic, really."

On Christmas day that year, Nicholson sent her a gift. It was a pearl and diamond bracelet that Frank Sinatra had once given to Ava Gardner. The note read, "These pearls from your swine. With happiest wishes for the holidays - Enjoy - Yr Jack."

"I was totally charmed. Totally charmed and furious, all of it. His signing, 'Your Jack', was the one thing he never was," Huston, now 72, told The Guardian in 2014. "But that’s the nature of a charmer - to make you think you've made tracks. Charm is the worst. And you can't deny it, and you can't pretend that it's not there, and it's not happening. It's a dangerous element, charm."

Nicholson, who is now 87, had four more children, and famously dated actress Lara Flynn Boyle from 1999 to 2004.

In 1992, Huston wed sculptor Robert Graham, who died in 2008. Although they did try to have children, it ultimately did not work. Looking back, Huston thinks it was for the best.

"I would probably have been miserable. When I talk about my mother and not wanting to echo that relationship, I think it would've probably been very much the same way," she said. "I would have been a stay-at-home mum, and he'd have been off, doing what he did. And that's never really been me, either. I'm too noisy. I suck up too much air, myself."

As for her relationship with her husband, Huston said he was the "steady one" whereas she was "flotsam and jetsam". Without him in her life, she admitted she frets and worries.

"I've done something all my life – like smoked – to keep my energy down. I've got a big engine. He used to say to me, 'Don’t worry your pretty little head.' That was my favourite sentence in the world," Huston said. "Just when he convinced me that was a good idea, he had to go and leave. Now I have to worry my pretty little head."

Feature Image: Getty Images.

This article was originally published in December 2022 and has since been updated.

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