Jack Nicholson Sings!

Jack has sung a few times.  Judge for yourself what kind of voice he has.

Here is a video of him playing/singing a doctor in The Who's Tommy.

Personally, I prefer a more sentimental song from the Broadway musical, "On A Clear Day, You Can See Forever" (1965)  The recording of Jack singing "Who is There Among Us Who Knows?", (surprisingly well!) can be found on Youtube along with a series of pictures of him and Barbra Streisand.  The scene was cut from the movie (1970), which did feature Bob Newhart and Yves Montand.  It reappeared on Broadway in 2011, starring Harry Connick Jr.  and a whole new plot.

The Lyrics are written out on someone else's blog, here and below.  Sentimental and vaguely references the topic of ESP which is featured in the plot.

Who is there among us who knows?

The echo of a love song heard before it's sung,
wandering through a memory dreamed when you were young.
Foolish or fantastic -- which do you suppose?
Who is there among us who knows?

From nowhere, the thought of someone gone for many years.
Then all at once a footstep: Lo, and he appears.
Imagined or a mystery --which, do you suppose?
Who is there among us who knows...

Or even cares which one is true?
There's hardly anyone except a haunted few...

Who long ago remembered somewhere they would see
someone wrapped in twilight, carrying the key,
carrying the secret everywhere he goes,
someone here among us who knows.

Someone here who may not even know she knows.

Music: Burton Lane. Lyrics: Alan Jay Lerner
Vocal: Jack Nicholson

The music was written by Burton Lane, who discovered Judy Garland.  He  wrote the music for "Finian's Rainbow" (1941), "Royal Wedding" (1951) and "On a Clear Day" (1965).  The Great American Songbook treasure "Old Devil Moon" comes out of the first, with lyrics by Yip Harburg.  Fred Astaire and Petula Clark were in the 1968 film adaptation, directed by Francis Ford Coppola (one of his first early big movies!!).

Lyrics written by Alan Jay Lerner.  In collaboration with Frederick Lowe, wrote the Broadway musicals "Brigadoon" (1947), "My Fair Lady" (1956) "Camelot" (1960).  Jackie Kennedy and many others were able to extend the metaphor to the early 1960's to capture the innocence of America before JFK's assassination.
He wrote screenplays for movies as well; for "Gigi",  for "American in Paris" (1951), "Royal Wedding" (1951) starring Fred Astaire (there he is again!).

Garden Path Digression:
Alan Jay Lerner collaborated with Kurt Weill (music) on a Broadway production called "Love Life" (1948),  (Peter worked on a Bertolt Brecht show, "Good Person", see previous blog post).  And Brecht/Weill are famous for "Threepenny Opera".  Back to "Mac the Knife", made popular in the US by Bobby Darin, who was best friends and had as an agent, Steve Blauner. The S of BBS!

Bob Rafelson: The Bad Guy

Happy Birthday!  Born in 1933 (Feb 21), he's the first half of RayBert and one of the B's in BBS.

Born in NYC to a Hat Manufacturer.

Interesting to note: Bob's uncle Sam, (Samson Raphaelson 3/30/1894-7/16/84) was a short story writer.  And playwright.  And Screenwriter. He wrote on "Shop Around the Corner" for Ernst Lubitsch and "Suspicion" for Hitchcock.  He also came up with a little story called, "The Jazz Singer".  He wrote the short story and play behind what would be the first talking movie in 1927.  A rabbi's kid wants to sing popular music, is renounced by his father and it all works out when he's a success.  Note the difference in spelling between Bob and Uncle Sam; it is simplified from "ph" to "f" and the "ae" becomes "e".  This Anglicizing shows that he had taken the lesson of "Jazz Singer" to heart.

Producer of the Monkees (with Mr. Bert Schneider) and collaborator with Nicholson and The Boys (uncredited) on "Head". Essentially, he took the money & prestige from the TV Show and used it to finance "Easy Rider" and the critical success of "5 Easy Pieces".        

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Even though it's his birthday, I will take this opportunity to insert a major question into this grand biography. Hollywood is a city of angles, and I believe that he entered and exited the entire TV Show project with the most cynicism and holds the most responsibility for any and all negative publicity and bad feelings arising from the narrative arc of our story.

In short, he is the Bad Guy of our story. The Bad Father, who eagerly seeded the PR and helped craft the contracts which only gave The Boys $400 a week and little to no profits from the residuals or merchandising.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that he deserted the project around the time of "Head", not fighting to capitalize on publicity or narrative accessibility.  Mel Brooks did a movie called "The Producers" which centered on crazy and evil producers getting a Broadway show to flop, to their financial benefit.  That's what RayBert did with "Head"; they wanted to kill the Monkee project and that movie was essentially received as a public funeral.  (Never mind that today it can be seen as a fascinating experimental film and a lynchpin in the Monkee narrative).