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Nick Nolte as screen hero
By Mary Shaffer Strong and smart, yet sensitive. Nick Nolte has made a career playing a boy in a man's body, talented but self-destructive, a loner drifting unhappily through an amoral world until he finds something to believe in. His 1991 performances in "Cape Fear" and "Prince of Tides" have brought the 50-year-old actor critical acclaim, box office success and peer recognition. He won the Golden Globe and could win the Oscar for best actor on March 30. It would cap a diverse 17-year career. He's been funny and sad, a good guy and bad, college educated and streetwise, an athlete, teacher, cop, criminal and panhandler. His best performances tap his own life: troubled marriages, drug and alcohol problems, even a felony conviction for selling forged draft cards to underage students during the Vietnam War. "I have sought out places where there's some turmoil because that is where I can learn something," he said. "The basic part of my nature is still rebellious." Like Robert Redford or Kevin Costner, Nolte has the good looks and all-American idealism of such screen idols as Gary Cooper and Jimmy Stewart, strong, silent types in roles requiring an actor to be physical, emotional and intelligent. Yet Nolte is darker and less certain, more like Humphrey Bogart or Jack Nicholson: cynical, rebellious and lonely, yet moral, freewheeling and charming. Nolte chooses roles that challenge and intrigue him rather than those with blockbuster potential. His only real previous box office smash was "48 Hours" (1982) with Eddie Murphy. In 1980, Nolte turned down the lead in "Superman" when Hollywood wouldn't let him play the role as a schizophrenic, a kind of cracked "Man of Steel." He's not a fan of conformity. "The only way to survive in Hollywood is to make a conscious decision to go crazy," said the actor who lived in the gutter while preparing to play a bum in "Down and Out in Beverly Hills." Co-stars Richard Dreyfuss and Bette Midler objected to acting with him because Nolte stank when he arrived on the set. "The actor's problem is to find stories he wants to be part of," Nolte said. "Then, if the studios make money and the public goes, that's fine. But that's not my intent out front." We've been Nolte fans since we first saw him in the 1978 film noir thriller, "Who'll Stop the Rain," adapted from Robert Stone's novel "Dog Soldiers", a slime-and-grime metaphor for America's loss of innocence during the Vietnam War. Nolte plays Vietnam vet Ray Hicks, reluctantly drawn in to his friend John Converse's (Michael Moriarty) misguided plan to smuggle heroin from Vietnam to California. John's disillusionment peaks after U.S. helicopter pilots are told to treat elephants as enemy agents. "In a world where elephants are pursued by flying men," he says, "people will just naturally want to get high." Back home, Hicks and John's pill-popping wife Marge (Tuesday Weld) quickly find they are in way over their heads. They and the heroin are pursued by memorable thugs (Richard Masur and Ray Sharkey) hired by a corrupt CIA agent (Anthony Zerbe). Hicks is unforgettable. He practices tai chi, reads Nietzsche, thinks most people "are Martians," and tends to be paranoid and self-centered. "Make sure I get treated right," he tells John. "Self-defense is an art I cultivate." Yet Hicks jeopardizes his freedom to protect his friends and can't avoid doing what is right. Nolte based Hicks on Bill Cross, a Vietnam veteran, fellow actor and close friend who has helped Nolte shape his characters ever since. Nolte's combination of brute force and native intelligence perfectly fit this film and his next one, "North Dallas Forty" (1979), where he is a warrior in a different kind of game. Adapted from ex-Dallas Cowboy Peter Gent's book of the same name, "North Dallas Forty" is the best film ever made about professional football. A great script and excellent supporting cast capture the game on and off the field, the mental and physical stress, player camaraderie, locker room rituals and corporate reality of the National Football League. Nolte plays Phil Elliott, a physically gifted but irreverent wide-receiver with an "attitude" problem. Near the end of his career, his body is used up, but his will "to play" isn't. He loves the game but hates the "rules" imposed by management who treats players as "equipment" to be "depreciated." To extend his career, Elliott practices "better football through chemistry," killing the pain in his body with a constant barrage of pills and shots. The opening sequence is especially memorable: Elliott awakening the day after a game, painfully recalling each hit. The most painful memory is a pass he shouldn't have dropped but did, proof his skills and body are deserting him. Without a word, Nolte conveys heart, head and soul of his character before the plot even begins. Like Elliott or Tom Wingo in "Prince of Tides," Nolte was a gifted athlete. This son of an Iowa State football player went to Arizona State on a football scholarship, but flunked out, hit the road and spent his tuition in a Mexican whorehouse. "It was a little Kerouacian," said Nolte who later played Neal Cassady, the man who inspired Kerouac's most famous novel ("On the Road"), in "Heart Beat," a film about writing the book. Five colleges and a decade later, Nolte discovered a passion for acting. He spent 14 years in regional theaters in his native mid-West before finding his way to the movies. His best roles are the bum in "Beverly Hills", photo-journalist in the political drama "Under Fire," passionate artist in Martin Scorsese's "Life Lessons" segment of "New York Stories," and real-life convict-turned-playwright in "Weeds." It's a career you should check out on video and cable.
(All works prior to 1991 are available on video.)
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