Jack Nicholson and Lara Flynn Boyle in 2001.Photo:Steve Granitz/WireImage
Steve Granitz/WireImage
Jack Nicholson’s daughterLorraine Nicholsonis reflecting on her dad’s relationship withLara Flynn Boyleand the positive influence the actress had on the family dynamic.
In a recent essay forVanity Fair, Lorraine recalled being a child when her father, now 87, romanced the formerTwin Peaksstar, now 54, in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
“We didn’t have to know she had been nominated for an Emmy that year for her work onThe Practicefor my brother and I to know we were in the presence of a powerful person,” continued Lorraine, whose mother, Rebecca Broussard, was in a relationship with Nicholson from 1989 to 1994. (Nicholson and Broussard also share a son, actorRay Nicholson, 32.)
Lara Flynn Boyle and Jack Nicholson in 2001.Getty
Getty
Lorraine recalled her father’s house being the opposite of her mother’s loud, boisterous home. “We lived among an almost mausoleum-level quiet. By his own admission, my dad had a hard time connecting to us as children — though he loved beautiful women, he had no interest in playing with dolls,” she wrote.
Enter Boyle — aka “the Mary Poppins of Mulholland Drive” — who played Barbie dolls with Lorraine and slept in the same room if the young girl had bad dreams.
Boyle, a “gangly Irish American” who was picked apart in the press for her appearance, also helped Lorraine deal with her own insecurities at an impressionable age: “Lara taught me that much like femininity, adolescence can be depressing and confusing, but it can also be full of freedom and unencumbered play."
Jack Nicholson and daughter Lorraine in 1997.Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty
Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty
Their play also extended to family time. “For my father, Lara acted as a bridge between him and his children. Suddenly, we were doing things we had never done before. In Aspen, we went whitewater rafting down the Colorado River. We cackled wildly while playing Parcheesi. In one particularly traitorous game of Uno, my brother and I kamakazied ourselves so that while we wouldn’t win, my father wouldn’t either,” she recalled.
Lorraine Nicholson on March 10, 2024.Amy Sussman/Getty
Amy Sussman/Getty
Lorraine knew even at that young age that the relationship between her father and Boyle wouldn’t stand the test of time. “And yet when I was with her, I had no clue what I would do without her,” she wrote.
The relationship did indeed come to an end, severing Lorraine’s ties, too. According to the writer, they have not seen each other for more than 20 years, but Boyle’s influence left a mark on Lorraine.
“I carry so much of her in me,” she wrote. “When she descended from the sky with her magic carpet bag, I was still figuring out the type of woman I wanted to be. In Lara, I saw characteristics that I liked— her irreverent sense of humor, her refusal to conform, her compassion for the underdog — and made them my own.”
source: people.com
