\nJack Nicholson\u2019s daughter, Lorraine Nicholson, had her own love story with his ex Lara Flynn Boyle.\n
Lorraine, 34, wrote an essay for Vanity Fair on Friday where she looked back on the special bond she created with Boyle, 54, when the \u201cTwink Peaks\u201d actress dated Jack, 87, from 1999 to 2004.\n
\u201cFor many girls, best friends are their first loves. They spend all their time together. Learn from each other. Protect each other,\u201d Lorraine wrote. \u201cAnd when the time comes for boys to enter the picture\u2014and a best friend\u2019s attention is split between them and another\u2014it is their first great heartbreak.\u201d\n
\u201cWhen I was nine, my best friend was 30-year-old ingenue Lara Flynn Boyle,\u201d Lorraine added.\n
Jack\u2019s daughter recalled how the couple\u2019s relationship \u201cbegan with a bang\u201d in 1999, when they got into a car accident on Mulholland Drive.\n
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Lorraine explained that at the time, there was \u201cspectacle\u201d over Jack and Boyle\u2019s relationship because they were 33 years apart in age. But according to Lorraine, \u201cno one could see they were actually falling in love.\u201d\n
Jack eventually introduced Boyle to his six children, including Lorraine, who said it was a moment she\u2019ll \u201cnever forget.\u201d\n
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\u201cShe came down the outdoor staircase to join us by the pool,\u201d Lorraine recalled of meeting Boyle. \u201cI remember the sun reflecting on the water, the sound of wind chimes in the trees. Most importantly, I remember what Lara wore\u2014a thong bathing suit with flames licking up the crotch. We didn\u2019t have to know she had been nominated for an Emmy that year for her work on \u2018The Practice\u2019 for my brother and I to know we were in the presence of a powerful person.\u201d\n
\u201cWith extrasensory intuition, she sensed I was a self-harmer and told me stories about the time she had to wear knee socks to hide her scratched-up shins,\u201d Lorraine shared, adding that Boyle \u201cmade me feel like my pain mattered.\u201d\n
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\u201cWhile the unavailability of my parents was not exactly rats-in-trash-bags level, I was a kid who felt, despite everything I had materially, there was something missing in my life,\u201d Lorraine continued. \u201cLara did not belittle these feelings. She told all these stories with a cigarette and a smile, because she was a survivor.\u201d\n
Lorraine also said that Boyle \u201cacted as a bridge\u201d between Jack and his six children, whom he shares with five different women, including Lorraine\u2019s mom, Rebecca Broussard.\n
\u201cSuddenly, we were doing things we had never done before,\u201d Lorraine remembered. \u201cIn Aspen, we went whitewater rafting down the Colorado River. In one particularly traitorous game of Uno, my brother and I kamakazied ourselves so that while we wouldn\u2019t win, my father wouldn\u2019t either. After he stormed out of the room, followed by a trail of very Nicholson obscenities, it was Lara who put a stop to his sulking and lured him back upstairs.\u201d\n
She added, \u201cSince his relationship with my mom, I had never seen my father with another woman. Like in the Mary Poppins films, I understand why it was Lara who sent the other applicants blowing ass-over-heels down the street.\u201d\n
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Lorraine called Jack and Boyle\u2019s relationship \u201ca point of no return\u201d because Boyle \u201cwent from being a woman on the verge of stardom\u2014a person validated for her work\u2014to a mere celebrity.\u201d\n
Jack and Boyle eventually split in 2004 \u2014 and Lorraine said she still has \u201cno clue why.\u201d\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if he cried or if she cried, but I certainly did,\u201d Lorraine wrote. \u201cI woke one snowy winter morning at our house in Aspen and she had just\u2014vanished.\u201d\n
\u201cI\u2019d known my father\u2019s relationship with Lara couldn\u2019t last forever, and yet when I was with her, I had no clue what I would do without her,\u201d she said.\n
At the end of her essay, Lorraine wrote, \u201cFor this article, I asked Lara if I could see her for the first time in more than 20 years to talk about the time we shared. She declined.\u201d\n
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\u201cOf course, this feels like being rejected by Mommy,\u201d she said. \u201cBut the truth is, whether I see Lara again or not is almost irrelevant, because I carry so much of her in me.\u201d\n
Boyle, who has been married to Texas real estate developer Donald Ray Thomas II since 2006, made a rare comment about Nicholson in an interview with People last year.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jack Nicholson\u2019s daughter looks back on his romance with Lara Flynn Boyle: \u2018Point of no return\u2019 Jack Nicholson\u2019s daughter, Lorraine Nicholson, had her own love story with his ex Lara Flynn Boyle. Lorraine, 34, wrote an essay for Vanity Fair on Friday where she looked back on the special bond she created with Boyle, 54,\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":109684,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[670],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-109679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/photo-jeff-kravitz-filmmagic-inc-97390678.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109687,"href":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109679\/revisions\/109687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefinejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}