Nicholson first came to Hollywood in 1954, when he was seventeen, to visit his sister.
He took a job as an office worker for animators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera at the MGM cartoon studio.
They offered him an entry-level job as an animator, but he declined, citing his desire to become an actor.
While accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 56th Golden Globe Awards, he recalled that his first day as a working actor was May 5, 1955, which he considered lucky, as "5" was the jersey number of his boyhood idol, Joe DiMaggio.

He trained to be an actor with a group called the Players Ring Theater, after which time he found small parts performing on the stage and in TV soap operas.
He made his film debut in a low-budget teen drama The Cry Baby Killer (1958), playing the title role.
For the following decade, Nicholson was a frequent collaborator with the film's producer, Roger Corman.
Corman directed Nicholson on several occasions, such as in The Little Shop of Horrors, as masochistic dental patient and undertaker Wilbur Force, and also in The Raven; The Terror, where he plays a French officer seduced by an evil ghost; and The St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

Nicholson also frequently worked with director Monte Hellman on low-budget westerns, though two in particular—Ride in the Whirlwind and The Shooting—initially failed to find interest from any US film distributors but gained cult success on the art-house circuit in France and were later sold to television.
Nicholson also appeared in two episodes of The Andy Griffith Show.
Nicholson first came to Hollywood in 1954, when he was seventeen, to visit his sister. He took a job as an office worker for animators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera at the MGM cartoon studio. They offered him an entry-level job as an animator, but he declined, citing his desire to become an actor. While accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 56th Golden Globe Awards, he recalled that his first day as a working actor was May 5, 1955, which he considered lucky, as "5" was the jersey number of his boyhood idol, Joe DiMaggio. 
He trained to be an actor with a group called the Players Ring Theater, after which time he found small parts performing on the stage and in TV soap operas. He made his film debut in a low-budget teen drama The Cry Baby Killer (1958), playing the title role. For the following decade, Nicholson was a frequent collaborator with the film's producer, Roger Corman. Corman directed Nicholson on several occasions, such as in The Little Shop of Horrors, as masochistic dental patient and undertaker Wilbur Force, and also in The Raven; The Terror, where he plays a French officer seduced by an evil ghost; and The St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
Nicholson also frequently worked with director Monte Hellman on low-budget westerns, though two in particular—Ride in the Whirlwind and The Shooting—initially failed to find interest from any US film distributors but gained cult success on the art-house circuit in France and were later sold to television. Nicholson also appeared in two episodes of The Andy Griffith Show.
Jack Nicholson