Nick Nolte’s story: ‘Rebel’ with a cause célèbre

One of Hollywood’s enduring bad boys is ready to tell all, on his terms.

Three-time Oscar nominee Nick Nolte first broke through in the 1976 miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man, which catapulted him to the top of the call sheet with hit psychological thrillers and action comedies including The Deep, 48 Hrs., Affliction and Cape Fear.

But as the Nebraska native details in his sprawling if somewhat stilted memoir, Rebel: My Life Outside the

Lines (William Morrow, ★★g☆), his success didn’t come straightaway, with years spent chasing dashed football dreams and honing his craft on community theater stages. All of which gets ample ink in his authorial debut, as do his varied sordid romances and run-ins with the law.

Much of the book reads like a selfcongratulatory Wikipedia page as Nolte, 77, rattles off box office receipts and accolades for each of his movies, even quoting many of the critics who praised his performances through the years. While this provides useful context for younger readers who may not be as familiar with his filmography, it also can become quite dry.

True to the gruff characters he inhabits in later movies such as Tropic Thunder and Warrior, Nolte’s writing style is squarely to the point, with no descriptive flourishes. He adds pops of color only when describing the hard-partying young bombshell who would become his second wife (Sharyn Haddad, referred to simply as “Legs”) and his general annoyance working with ex-girlfriend Debra Winger, whose “capricious behavior” on the set of Cannery Row he blames for the film’s so-so turnout.

Like any celebrity memoir, the frequent name-drops and tidbits about behind-the-scenes dirt often are what’s most fascinating about Rebel. Woody Harrelson and Sean Penn, for instance, had something of a sportive one-upmanship on the set of The Thin Red Line, culminating in an elaborate prank that ended at a police station.

Nolte nearly starred in the crime drama Pride and Glory but was so put off by Edward Norton’s apparently cocky attitude that he quit the project and was replaced by Jon Voight.

Bette Midler was (understandably) disgusted by his extreme Method acting while shooting Down and Out in Beverly

Hills — for which he didn’t shower and ate dog food, to play a vagrant. And he claims a smitten Barbra Streisand wanted to move in together after wrapping 1991’s The Prince of Tides.

Nolte readily admits he’s fond of telling tall tales — a trait he shares with Warrior co-star Tom Hardy — which makes it difficult to parse whether some of his more outrageous anecdotes about youthful rebellion and exwives are true.

But there are moments that are genuinely poignant as he recounts his lifelong struggles with alcohol and drug addiction and how fatherhood and brushes with death compelled him to break his habits. The most moving and morbidly funny passage is a tribute to his father, whose wooden leg Nolte evidently lost in New Mexico during a week of post-funeral revelry.

He ends Rebel by reflecting on his mortality, predicting, “I’ve got five years or so before I, too, get to head ‘elsewhere’ to be rebellious and cause more glorious havoc.”

We can only hope that Father Time doesn’t come knocking then, or frankly, anytime soon, because this scintillating screen legend clearly has many more yarns to tell.

Much of the book reads like a self-congratulatory Wikipedia page as Nolte rattles off box office receipts and accolades for each of his movies.

LARGO ENTERTAINMENT Nick Nolte was nominated for an Oscar for 1997’s “Affliction.”