If a judge hadn’t taken pity on him, we wouldn’t have had the chance to know Nick Nolte…
You may remember Nick Nolte’s (The Red Line, Warrior…) famous mugshot from 2002, the one where the three-time Oscar nominee has tousled hair and wears a Hawaiian shirt. But did you know that he had another one dating back several years before this arrest?
In 1961, at the age of 20, and before a judge took pity on him and suspended his sentence, Nick Nolte was arrested and fined $75,000 and given a 45-year suspended prison sentence for selling false incorporation cards. The judge then warned him that if he was arrested for any other crime, he would be imprisoned under the original conditions of his sentence. He was thus on probation for the duration of the Vietnam War in which he was unable to participate. In fact, his conviction made him ineligible for military service. While he had felt compelled to serve, he said he felt incomplete as a young man because he had not been to Vietnam.
On the judicial ID photo – or mugshot – linked to this arrest, we find a Nick Nolte before fame, with short hair and a button-down shirt.
In 2018, the actor returned to this conviction, as well as his second arrest years later, in his memoirs, Rebel: My Life Outside the Lines. Then aged 77, he was finally ready to tell his story.
“I’ve had two mugshots in my life. It’s hard to get them. And if you get them, you better make sure you look into the circumstances under which you got them”, the actor then told the Associated Press. “The best way to deal with the biggest mistakes of your life is to talk about them. With everyone, including God.”
The autobiography charted the rise of the actor, a Midwestern sportsman who rose to fame later in life by trading his stage performances for films.
“Acting has always appealed to me a lot because it involves taking risks. […] Actors take risks. And they take risks for their own mental health.”
Risk taking
Yes, he took risks. The book recounts his incredible appetite for drugs and the time he single-handedly saved the film Under Fire (1983) by smuggling the film cartridges out of Mexico, one step ahead of the law.
We also learn that he ate real dog food in The Beverly Hills Tramp (1986), and that he took real heroin during the eight weeks of filming Riviera Man (2002). ) to better embody a heroin addict.
The actor also looked back on his interactions with his co-stars. If he had nice things to say about Eddie Murphy, Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand, this was not the case for Debra Winger (Sardine Street) and Edward Norton (he also swore to “slit his throat”). It also recounted a spectacular prank played by Woody Harrelson on Sean Penn in Australia, involving real police officers and gunfire.
Speaking of mugshots…
And of course, there’s the story of his infamous arrest on September 11, 2002. That day, he had gone to the gym for a GHB-enhanced workout, but felt ill. So he headed to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, but did not enter, and instead drove down the Pacific Coast Highway and will be arrested on suspicion of drunk driving.
Universal Pictures
The photo of his arrest will then make the rounds in the press. In 2002, he pleaded no contest to charges of driving under the influence and was sentenced to 3 years probation, ordered to complete alcohol and drug counseling with random testing required.
In an interview with GQ, he said, however, in 2011, that the famous photo was not a mugshot but a Polaroid taken by a young police officer at the police station, which he authorized so that the police officer and his friends could earn money. money by selling it. The police said otherwise.
“I needed help”, he finally wrote in 2018, adding that in the photo, he looked like “an asylum inmate having fun in his floral-print Hawaiian shirt”. Now sober, he laughed about it. “I take full responsibility for this.”
In 2024, we will find Nick Nolte in Rittenhouse Square, a drama in which he plays a homeless veteran who overcomes his difficult times, alongside a young street singer, through friendship and music.
In the meantime, you can find him in his latest film, Blackout (2022), with Josh Duhamel And Abbie Cornishavailable for streaming on Netflix.