People in the News for December 22, 1997

Monday, Dec. 22, 1997 | 9:44 a.m.

Jack's done the math, devised what you might call Nicholson's Theorem: "85 percent of any character you play not only has things in common, but is exactly the same as you are," he says. Perhaps he should run those numbers through the calculator again: While Jack undoubtedly called on the same 85 percent of himself for certain parts -- werewolf, ax-wielding scribe, the devil -- he'd have to call on an entirely different 85 percent for nonevil roles. Which means there's at least 170 percent of him! Entirely plausible, yes, in comparison to, say, Greg Kinnear, who can barely muster 14 percent. But given the length and variety of Nicholson's career, there would have to be something like ... hmm, multiply these figures, carry the 12 ... 812 percent of him to account for it all. That's a whopping 58 Kinnears -- is that possible? Nor has he stopped piling up the numbers: He adds to his total with his role as Melvin, the obsessive-compulsive novelist he plays in "As Good as It Gets." "Melvin is more apparently vulnerable, oddly, than most roles I've played," Nicholson says. But, naturally, he can relate. "I'm day-by-day vulnerable," he says. In studying obsessive-compulsives, Jack says, he was appalled by the way some were treated on a daytime talk show. "At the end of the show, they squirted them with Silly String; they might as well have been poking at their eyes with straws. It was horrifying to me."

Briefly

There are greater hazards on the golf course than sand traps and lime-green-checked pants, as Evel Knievel learned recently when he took a spill on a Tampa fairway. A tumble that would have resulted in a fierce exclamation of "Ouch!" from your average duffer sent Mr. Broken Every Bone in My Body to the hospital for hip replacement surgery. It seems that the wear and tear from years of breaking every bone in his body has left him day-to-day vulnerable to savage boo-boos. "The doctors said they had never seen a worse hip in their lives," Knievel, 59, says, with perhaps the slightest hint of daredevil, broken-every-bone-in-my-body pride. "They tell me I won't be able to walk for four months. I'll cut that in half, though." If he does, well, poke our eyes with straws!

Compiled by Scott Dickensheets