It's not often that celebrities gets entagled in a sports related incident. However, actor, Jack Nicholson, was involved in a road rage incident that involved the use of a 2-iron golf club to smash up a windshield in 1994.
The Oscar-winning actor was charged with misdemeanor vandalism and assault for allegedly smashing the windshield of a car with a golf club because he believed the driver cut him off in traffic. Robert Scott Blank of Hollywood accused Nicholson of attacking his Mercedes-Benz on 8 February in North Hollywood.
Nicholson stepped out of his car at a red light at the intersection of Moorpark Way and Riverside Drive and repeatedly struck the windshield and roof of Blank’s car with a golf club, according to a statement by the agency.
Blank told investigators that he never got out of his car. Witnesses said that after the attack, Nicholson and a man who got out of the car with him returned to Nicholson’s car and drove off, the statement said.
In a separate civil suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Blank, 38, said he was hurt by flying glass from the windshield and that the attack made him fear for his life.
The criminal complaint filed against Nicholson, who has been a major box-office draw for more than 20 years, charged him with one count each of vandalism and assault, said Rick Schmidt of the city attorney’s Van Nuys office.
Two independent witnesses identified the weapon as a golf club and one identified the 57-year-old actor as the attacker, Schmidt said. One witness also remembered the license plate number of the vehicle and the city attorney’s office used the information to trace the car to Nicholson, authorities said.
Nicholson's lawyer, Santa Monica attorney, Charles English, said he hadn't seen the complaint and couldn't comment until he had reviewed it. Blank’s lawyer didn't return calls to his office.
Some of Nicholson's film credits include: A Few Good Men; Prizzi’s Honor; The Shining and Five Easy Pieces. He won an Oscar for best actor in 1975 for his performance as a mental patient in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
Nicholson later expressed regret about the incident in an interview with Us Magazine, calling it “a shameful incident in my life.” He explained that a close friend had recently died, and that he had also been under a good deal of stress during the shooting of his most recent movie, The Crossing Guard. In that film, directed by Sean Penn, Nicholson played Freddie Gale, a man who vows to wreak vengeance on the drunk driver who killed his daughter.
According to Nicholson, he went, "out of my mind" after being cut off and snatched one of his golf clubs from the trunk of his car. Though press reports of the incident variously reported that the club in question had been a three- or a five-iron, Nicholson (who started golfing seriously after learning the game for the filming of 1990’s The Two Jakes) cleared up the issue in a 2007 interview with Golf Digest. "I was on my way to the course, and in the midst of this madness I somehow knew what I was doing," he says, "because I reached into my trunk and specifically selected a club I never used on the course: my two-iron."
The road rage incident wasn’t the last time Nicholson’s volatile persona - on-and off-screen - made news. A legendary fan of the Los Angeles Lakers professional basketball team, Nicholson has more than once been threatened with ejection from his courtside seats because, he argued with or shouted at, the game’s referees. As BBC News reported, Nicholson was almost ejected from a Lakers play-off game against the San Antonio Spurs in May 2003 after he yelled at the game's referee for calling a third foul on Lakers star, Shaquille O’Neal. The incident occurred shortly after the release of his latest movie at the time; none other than, Anger Management.
He later elaborated further in the Golf Digest interview. He said, "I was out of my mind," he said later, referring to the rugged schedule of a film he was directing and the recent death of a friend. The case was settled out of court when he wrote the other driver a check, reportedly for $500 000. One mystery remained: What club had he used? News reports called it a wedge or a 5-iron; others said 3-iron and 9-iron.
"I was on my way to the course, and in the midst of this madness I some-how knew what I was doing," he says, "because I reached into my trunk and specifically selected a club I never used on the course: my 2-iron."
This was a bit of a overreaction. Attacking someone for simply cutting someone off isn't necessary. I don't drive any more but I wouldn't attack someone if they did the same thing to me when I drove. It's a natural thing for drivers to cut off people.