Nick Nolte: biography and filmography

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Nick Nolte is an American actor, model, producer, and writer. He is best known to the general public for his roles in the film "48 Hours" and its sequel, the melodrama "Lord of the Tides" and the thriller "Cape Fear". Three-time Oscar nominee and Golden Globe winner. Voted Sexiest Man in the World by People magazine in 1992.

Childhood and youth

Nick Nolte was born February 8, 1941 in Omaha, Nebraska. His real name is Nicholas King Nolte. At school, the future actor was a promising athlete, played as a kicker on the football team, but was kicked out of the team and expelled from school after he was caught drinking beer before training.

After graduating from high school, Nick Nolte attended four different colleges on an athletic scholarship, at various times was a member of the football, baseball and basketball teams, but due to low grades, he could not graduate and receive a diploma. At the same time, he became interested in theater anddecided to become an actor.

Career start

In the sixties, Nick Nolte traveled the country, playing in small local theaters. Spent three years in Minnesota. At the same time, the young actor began to earn extra money as a model and even appeared on the cover of one of the glossy magazines. In 1965, he was arrested for selling fake documents and sentenced to 45 years in prison, but the judge commuted the sentence to probation. Because of this, Nolte was not drafted into the Vietnam War.

In the early seventies, Nolte was offered small roles in television series and films. Soon he began to receive leading roles in feature films, playing in the adventure film by Peter Yates "The Abyss" and in the drama "Who Stops the Rain". For his second film, Nick was nominated for several awards, winning third place in the National Board of Film Critics' vote for Best Actor.

Most notable roles

In 1982, the actor got the lead role in W alter Hill's action comedy "48 Hours", where he became a partner of aspiring comedian Eddie Murphy, for whom this film became his debut. In Nick Nolte's filmography, this is also a breakthrough work, the film performed well at the box office, made the leading actors real Hollywood stars and is considered to have laid the foundation for the buddy cop film genre.

In the next few years, Nolte starred in the military drama "Under Fire", a satirical comedy"Teachers", the western "All Precautions", the crime drama "Questions and Answers", the action movie "The Other 48 Hours" and the thriller "Cape Fear".

In 1991, the romantic drama "Lord of the Tides" was released, starring Barbara Streisand and Nick Nolte. The actor for this work was nominated for an Oscar for the first time in his career and received a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama. The following year, Nolte starred in the successful drama Lorenzo's Oil.

In 1997, Nick Nolte appeared in the title role in the crime drama "Mourning", for which he was nominated for an Oscar for the second time. Many critics considered him the main contender for the victory, but the award unexpectedly went to the Italian Roberto Benigni for the military tragicomedy Life is Beautiful.

In 1998, the actor played one of the roles in Terrence Malick's military epic "Thin Red Thread". In subsequent years, his career began to decline, he began to appear less frequently in large projects. We can highlight the crime drama "The Good Thief" and the superhero blockbuster "Hulk".

Recent work

In 2008, Nick Nolte appeared in Ben Stiller's parody comedy Tropic Troopers. In 2011, he played one of the main roles in the sports drama The Warrior, for which he received his third Oscar nomination. Thisthe role is considered by many to be Nick Nolte's comeback after years of battling alcoholism.

After that, the actor began to appear more often in major projects, playing small roles in action films "Parker" and "Gangster Squads". In 2016, the comedy series Graves, starring Nick Nolte, was released. He was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy Series, but the project was canceled after the second season.

In 2017, Nolte received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Missed roles

In Nick Nolte's creative biography, you can see many missed roles in films that later became box office hits and cult classics. For example, he was one of the candidates for the role of Han Solo in the movie "Star Wars" along with Al Pacino and Christopher Walken, but the choice of the director fell on the relatively unknown then Harrison Ford.

In 1978, Nick Nolte was offered the lead role in Richard Donner's Superman, but turned it down. According to legend, the actor wanted to play Clark Kent as a schizophrenic, which, of course, did not please the producers and the director.

He was also considered at various times for the roles of John Rambo, Indiana Jones, John McClane and Snake Pliskin, and could also get the main roles in the films "The Thing" and "Apocalypse Now".

Private life

Nick Nolte's personal life has been the subject of intense media attention for many years. The actor has been married fourtimes, a daughter was born in the third marriage. He was also in a relationship with famous actresses Vicki Lewis and Debra Winger. Became a father for the second time at the age of 66.

For many years Nolte was one of the most famous alcoholics in Hollywood, his drinking was legendary. In 1990, he decided to get rid of alcoholism, but in 2002 he was arrested for drunk driving, illegal drugs were found in his blood. Nolte received three years of probation with compulsory addiction treatment. In 2018, the actor's memoirs went on sale.