Jack Nicholson was reluctant to attend the Oscars in 1976, despite being nominated for Best Actor for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The film, directed by Miloš Forman and celebrating its 50th anniversary with a nationwide re-release on July 13 and 16, had become a major success—ranking as the second-highest-grossing film of 1975, just behind Jaws, and earning nine Academy Award nominations.
But Nicholson, having been nominated five times in five years and losing each time, wasn’t feeling hopeful. He told producer Michael Douglas he didn’t want to face another loss.
“I had to work really hard to convince Jack to attend,” Douglas recalled in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “He was so hesitant. And when we lost the first four categories, he turned to me and said, ‘Oh, Mikey D, I told you.’ I just told him to hang in there.”
Douglas’s optimism proved right. Cuckoo’s Nest made Oscar history by winning the “Big Five” awards—Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay—the first film to do so since It Happened One Night in 1934, and a feat matched only by The Silence of the Lambs since. That night became a defining moment for a film that had once struggled to find backing, but ultimately earned its place as a cinematic classic.
