Anjelica Huston (Old Actress) Says Jack Nicholson Has "Upstairs" and "Downstairs" Cocaine At His Parties
Fascinating interview I read on Vulture this morning with Anjelica Huston – the younger kids reading this, she’s in The Life Aquatic and is the evil one in Ever After which you’ve definitely watched with a girlfriend at some point.
For some reason Huston is big mad at a lot of people in Hollywood, but first she address Jack Nicholson’s house parties with some fire details.
I remember reading that Jack NicholsonHuston and Nicholson’s relationship began in 1973, when stepmother Celeste “Cici” Huston brought Anjelica to his birthday party and she ended up spending the night with him. supposedly had what he called upstairs and downstairs cocaine. Downstairs was good enough for guests, but upstairs was the good stuff for him and his intimates.
I don’t know that that’s a true story. But there was a type of cocaine in the ’70s that I would’ve classified as upstairs cocaine — pharmaceutical flake — that was kind of effervescent, not that it was fizzy, but it was light and uncut.
What is the difference between good cocaine and bad cocaine?
Bad cocaine makes you feel shitty. Probably makes you run for the loo because it’s laced with laxatives. Pure cocaine gives you a very light, airy, clear, and extremely pleasant feeling. But really, there’s no such thing as good cocaine. I don’t believe that people should take it recreationally.
Imagine being invited up to Jack’s “Upstairs”? Man that high would probably be stronger than the one from the actual drugs. Waving bye bye to the peons and peasants doing the Downstairs cocaine, running to the bathroom every 10 minutes to diarrhea from the laxatives.
Nicholson was apparently a good coke guy. Not one of those coke guys that gets weird and antsy and jittery and annoying.
Jack supposedly liked his cocaine. Was he a functional user?
Very much so. Never took overt amounts. He was never a guzzler. I think Jack sort of used it, probably like Freud did, in a rather smart way. Jack always had a bit of a problem with physical lethargy. He was tired, and I think probably, at a certain age, a little bump would cheer him up. Like espresso.
Can’t argue with that. Little key bump in the bathroom before the next scene, just like an espresso but better.
Was there a low point when you decided it wasn’t good anymore?
Yeah, but actually it wasn’t a low point. It was more of a high point, when I decided it was ridiculous and bad for me. I’d just met my future husband,The Mexican-born artist Robert Graham, known for his massive bronze public sculptures, including one in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C. and it was something I didn’t want to share with him and I didn’t want to continue doing, so I gave it up fast.
Quitter.
The convo then turns a lot more haterish, when Anjelica starts randomly firing ricochet shots at two legends of the game: Bobby De Niro and Al Pacino.
It really is sort of disappointing to see people whom I personally idolized doing the kind of movies that Robert De Niro’s willing to take now.
You don’t want to see Jack do that. I don’t want to see Jack doing Meet the Fockers. I already get depressed if I see him in perfectly good Nancy Meyers movies. I like to see Jack in full rebellious feather, and that’s how I love him best on film. I loved him in Terms of Endearment, where he plays this incredibly romantic no-goodnik.
Do you think needing money is what keeps a lot of older actors working on substandard stuff?
Yeah.
Is this why we see Robert De Niro in terrible movies?
Although, how big can his nut be?* I guess he has maybe a couple of ex-wives, right? Not many, but what does this fellow spend his money on? He’s got Nobu. He’s got the Tribeca Film Festival — he’s not spending the film money on that.
Al Pacino’s done some unfortunate straight-to-video stuff too.
Pacino does some schlock. But in some way he’s forgiven, because he always goes out on a limb and does Salomé all by himself. Pacino is more experimental, I think. But Bobby, I don’t know the last thing that I’ve seen him in that I thought, Wow, he’s really cracking it.
“He’s got Nobu and the Tribeca Film Festival, what’s he need more money for” – you serious? He needs more money to have more money. Having more money is always better than having less money. If he wants to act in bad movies what’s it to you? He was great in that internship movie with Hathaway. Stop being a hater.