Orange County Register

Director Rob Reiner worked with Jack Nicholson 15 years ago in “A Few Good Men.”

Obviously, it was a good enough experience for both men to return to the creative partnership in the new film “The Bucket List.” Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play men with terminal illnesses who make out a list of things that want to do and see before they kick the bucket.

Reiner calls his film both a comedy and a drama. “It’s not about dying,” he told me. “It’s about living. It’s about finding the most meaningful things in life.”

The director said he enjoys working with Jack, although it is not always easy. He said Jack is not afraid to express his opinion on how the movie should be directed.

“Jack is a realist in that he knows that a director always wins,” Reiner explained. “But he also knows that I am open to a good suggestion, and I would be an idiot not to listen to someone like Jack. He has so much to offer.”

For instance, Nicholson had a serious problem with the last line of the movie as it was written in the script. I will not reveal the last line of the movie because I am not a jerk. But the last line you hear in the film is not from the  script. It was suggested by Nicholson.

“Jack was adamant that the line be changed,” Reiner recalled. “He actually said that if I didn’t change it, it was a dealbreaker for him. Fortunately, the last line was a voiceover so we could go ahead and shoot the entire film and worry about the last line later.

“After we finished the film, I thought about it and decided that Jack was right so I changed the line. Now it’s impossible to imagine the movie without that line.” 

It can’t be easy to be Jack Nicholson. Oh, I’m sure that it’s a lot of fun to be Jack Nicholson, but it can’t be easy. He’s won three Oscars, been nominated 12 times and is generally considered the best actor of his generation. On top of that, everybody thinks he’s the coolest guy in the world.

So, you’re probably asking yourself: “Where’s the hard part?”

I’m thinking that it can’t be easy to stay grounded in the face of all that adulation. If I got half of the love that Jack got, I would be an ass. Or a bigger ass.

So, I sat at the feet of the master recently and asked him how he maintained his cool after all these years. Here’s Jack’s answer:

“When I was a young actor, I saw Orson Welles give a speech after accepting an award. Orson said that his father told him that the measure of a man’s character was how gracefully he accepted a compliment.

“I idolized Orson Welles, and I decided at that moment that that was how I was going to live my life. It became my life’s philosophy.

“Then years later, I got to meet Orson and I told him how much he had helped to shape my life with that speech. He looked at me and said: “My father never said it.”

“That’s right, he made it up. But I didn’t hold it against him. It’s still a pretty good philosophy to live by.”

His best buddy, Warren Beatty, has been everpresent on the political scene. He never actually ran for office, but he has been involved in a number of political campaigns, and has publicly supported many political candidates.

Jack Nicholson, on the other hand, has been relatively low-key when it comes to politics. When I met with him recently in a Beverly Hills hotel suite, I wondered about his politics.

I didn’t really care where he stood on the issues, or which candidates he backed, but I was curious whether he ever held any political ambitions of his own? 

“My fantasy has never been to be the president,” he explained. “I always wanted to be the friend of the president - the guy the president turns to for advice when he feels he can’t trust his advisors anymore. I wanted to be in a position to talk some sense into the president.”

This was no pipe dream. Nicholson said he he actually attached himself to three men who he felt possessed “presidential timbre,” and might prove to be a valued friend after being elected.

Unfortunately, he picked three horses that never finished the race - Gary Hart, Jerry Brown and Bill Bradley. 

“These were the three guys whose coattails I tried to tie myself to,” the three-time Oscar winner said. “It was my chance to contribute to the public welfare, but it didn’t work out.

“I really wanted to help humanity,” he added. “Even a neo-spartan hedonist like me wants to help sometimes.”

There is no more dignified or respected actress in the world than Helen Mirren. And no one would get a bigger laugh out of that last sentence than Helen Mirren.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. She worked hard for what she has accomplished, and she appreciates the awards she has been given by her peers (the latest kudos include an Oscar for “The Queen” and two Emmys).

But she wasn’t always portraying queens. There was a time in her career when she was the actress a director turned to when he needed someone willing to bare her breasts for a role. Helen Mirren has been naked in public more than Pam Anderson.

She makes no apologies for those roles, and laughs when she discusses them. She is constantly amused by how much respect she is accorded, given that she once had a reputation as the actress who showed her breasts all the time.

There is another clue that this wonderful, esteemed actress had an adventurous side. Look closely at the photo shown here. Look for a mark on her left hand, between her thumb and forefinger. That’s a tattoo.

It is an American Indian symbol that she had tattooed on her hand in the early 1970s. She was traveling through Minnesota with a acting troupe when she and her friends visited a reservation one night and had too much to drink.

She wears that ink proudly now because it reminds her of wilder times, and serves as a warning to outsiders that she is not all that predictable.

“I’m proud of that tattoo,” she told me, “because I got it at a time when only Hells Angels and sailors got tattoos. Now, it’s all the fashion. I hate that.”

Despite her arrest this week, singer Amy Winehouse holds a narrow lead over Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton in this week’s poll, which asks which celebrity you think will stay scandal-free in 2008.

My editor Jeff was quick to tip me off to Amy’s arrest yesterday, but I pointed out that it is still 2007, and she can get herself straight before the new year begins.

Lindsay gained support based on her continuing sobriety, and I suppose Paris is doing well because she finally chose to hire a driver to take her club-hopping this week.

Meanwhile, poor, pathetic Britney Spears holds up the rear of the poll with only a single vote. I suspect that her lone vote came from her pregnant 16-year-old sister.

There is still plenty of time to vote, and I apologize to anyone who experienced difficulties in registering a vote. There seem to be a few technical problems in the system. For that reason, I’m going to hold off on any new polls for a couple of weeks. Stay tuned.