He may be fat and 72, but Jack Nicholson will always be a lad
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Hey man: Jack Nicholson flies in the face of traditional values
The voice said: 'Hey, man, wanna hit?' I was washing my hands in the men's room at Claridges hotel in London in the Seventies. I looked around. The room seemed empty.
'Here, have a hit, man,' the voice spoke to me again.
Maybe I'd had a glass of Chateau Margaux too many and was hearing voices. I'm told it happens.
Then I noticed the figure sitting cross-legged beneath a hand basin at the end of the room. I guessed from the exotic aroma that he was smoking a joint.
'It's good stuff man,' he assured me, slowly expelling a cloud of pale smoke, and wafting it towards me for me to judge for myself.
'No thanks, not just at the moment,' I said, being very British about taking illegal substances from strangers.
'I can highly recommend it. A real hot one,' he assured me, fixing me with a pair of cobra eyes, defying me to refuse.
His smile was terrific. A little unsettling perhaps, but terrific. And his voice was familiar, and slightly bemused.
He looked like a late-night reveller who has just realised he's missed the last bus home, but couldn't care less.
Clearly a maverick, still boyish-looking - although his hair was already a little thin on top - he was unquestionably Jack Nicholson.
Sure, there had been hell-raisers before, stars with the names above the title who ended their nights under the table.
I had known and sometimes caroused with many of them. I had seen the competitive antics of Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole first-hand, and the self-proclaimed head of the temperance society, Trevor Howard, in full flow.
But there was something about Jack Nicholson that was entirely different. Nicholson was an actor who was strictly on his own wave-length.
He was a man who knew that he stood squarely in opposition to society's - and even Hollywood's - traditional values and was totally comfortable with it.
'Jack is a very social loner,' Peter Finch once told me. But what is surprising is that Nicholson, at 72, has sustained this attitude until today.
Growing old disgracefully: Jack Nicholson dances with a woman at a private party hosted by Belgian socialite Christian Berhman Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat
The picture of him energetically and irreverently performing the Twist aboard a yacht on the French Riviera might have astonished his younger companions. But it did not surprise me.
Certainly, he was carrying a few extra inches around the middle - OK, he is fat - but he was doing what Jack Nicholson does best: he was being his own man. He was being Jack the Lad. And, as befits a man of his charisma, he was growing old disgracefully.
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Courting attention: Younger women are a magnet to Jack Nicholson
It can't be easy. As well as dealing with the long nights, the energetic dancing with women and the hangovers, he must have to deal with the superior tut-tutting of a generation of goody-goody stars.
In this world of newfangled celebrity tofu diets and exercise regimes, Jack Nicholson has ploughed a lonely furrow. But thank goodness he has. Because what a boring place planet celebrity would be without him.
At a time when stars are becoming increasingly insipid, good old Jack is a reminder of a golden age of bad behaviour.
Jack Nicholson: The Oscar-winning actor lives life to the full with his legendary partying and sunshine breaks
Then again, Nicholson never cared about what others thought of him. He does it his way.
'Hollywood is a club town, but Jack isn't a joiner. He likes to have people around, but also likes to be remote,' said an old friend of his. 'And Jack is the most talented guy there is in this town. That's probably why he just doesn't give a hoot for anybody, although he's a loving guy, too.'
Growing old disgracefully: Jack Nicholson enjoys nothing more than cavorting with younger women
In fact, even as an ageing man, Nicholson loves to stand out from the crowd, to thrill, to shock. That is why, perhaps, he bedecked his Hollywood home with an eccentric collection of stuffed pigs. There were leather pig effigies, and a needle-point showing a couple of pigs coupling. 'When pigs became the symbol of evil, I adopted them,' Nicholson explained solemnly.
But Nicholson's bravado has always been genuine. Mike Nichols, who directed him in Carnal Knowledge, once said: 'Nicholson always tells the truth - in his acting and in his life. He knows who he is and accepts himself as he accepts others.'
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Charmer: Nicholson pictured in London in 1996 with a bevvy of beauties
Not long after I encountered him at Claridges, Nicholson told a mutual friend: 'I've balled everybody, taken all the drugs, been everywhere. Now I'm looking for something valid.'
I'm not sure whether yesterday's pictures tell us whether he is any closer to what he is searching for - after all, he recently said: 'In my sunglasses, I'm Jack Nicholson. Without them, I'm fat and 72' - but they certainly tell us he has the energy to go on looking.
Indeed, even as a septuagenarian, his own kind of heroism is measured not in his ability to succeed, but to survive on his own terms. And to keep on doing it - however old.
He's just Jack. Long may that continue.
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