Jack Nicholson’s Daughter Lorraine on His Romance With Lara Flynn Boyle

Jack Nicholsona girl Lorraine Nicholson used to be close friends with one of her father’s paramour.

“For many girls, best friends are their first boyfriends. They spend all their time together. Learn from each other. Protect each other,” wrote Lorraine, 34, in an essay Friday, January 24, for Vanity fair. “And when the time comes for boys to enter the picture — and the attention of a best friend is shared between them and another — this is their first big heartbreak. When I was 9, my best friend was a 30-year-old ingenue Lara Flynn Boyle.”

Twin Peaks alum Boylenow 54, started dating Nicholson, now 87, in 1999.

“Much like the universe, Lara’s romance with my father started with a bang. One quiet summer evening in 1999, the fledgling couple were dressed for dinner, the engine of their Mercedes the only sound,” Lorraine recalled. “My father moved to make a left turn on Mulholland from Coldwater, just a quarter of a mile from our house when their car collided with another. When Dad came to the end, his head dripping blood, he looked up to see Lara crawling out of the sunroof. She reportedly screamed, ‘I can’t be here!’ and the hunter left steaming metal like a dead horse.”

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Lorraine further claimed in the essay that she did not learn about the car accident from a family member, but rather from a “noisy mother at school.”

“I would saw my father a few days before and he didn’t mention a car accident,” he wrote. “Not knowing the tabloids would pick up the news, he wanted to present Lara on her own terms.”

Jack and Boyle, who have an age gap of 33 yearsdated from 1999 to 2004. Ultimately, the actress introduced i his children. (Jack is a father of six, shares Lorraine and son Ray with ex Rebecca Broussard. He also shares his daughter Jennifer with Sandra Knightson of Caleb with Susan Anspachdaughter Mêl with Winnie Hollman and daughter Tessa with Jennine Gourin.)

“I will never forget the first day Lara was introduced to us children. He came down the outdoor steps to join us by the pool,” said Lorraine. “I remember the sun reflecting on the water, the sound of the wind singing in the trees. Most importantly, I remember what Lara was wearing—a thong bathing suit with flames licking the crotch. We didn’t have to know that she had been nominated for an Emmy that year for her work on it The Practice so that my brother and I may know that we are in the presence of a powerful person.”

He added, “That day, I was too scared to talk to her. Instead, I watched her stealthily from the shallow end, as she read a book on a plastic raft, the wind gently pushing her back and forth across the surface of the water. Finally, she had arrived, the answer to my prayers – the Mary Poppins of Mulholland Drive.”

Once Lorraine met Boyle, she said she was captivated by the actress’ charm, confidence and compassion.

“With extrasensory perception, she sensed that I was self-harming and she told me stories about the time she had to wear knee socks to hide her scraped bones,” says Lorraine. “Lara made me feel that my pain mattered. … I was a child who felt, despite everything I had materially, that something was missing in my life. Lara did not downplay these feelings. She told all these stories with a cigarette and a smile because she was a survivor.”

Over time, Lorraine said she “grew to (Boyle) like she was made of glue.”

“For my father, Lara acted as a bridge between him and his children. Suddenly, we were doing things we’d never done before,” added Lorraine. “In Aspen, we went white water rafting down the Colorado River. We screamed wildly while playing Parcheesi. In one particularly treacherous game of Uno, my brother and I made ourselves kamakazi so even though we wouldn’t win, neither would my father.”

Ultimately, Jack and Boyle called it quits in 2004 and, as Lorraine wrote in her essay, she has “no idea why.”

“I don’t know if he cried or if she cried, but I certainly did. I woke up one snowy winter morning at our house in Aspen and it was just – gone,” Lorraine recalled. “I knew my father’s relationship with Lara couldn’t last forever, yet when I was with her, I had no idea what I would do without her.”

According to Lorraine, the last words Boyle ever said to her were, “I’ll always have you in my heart, baby.” Lorraine has not seen Boyle since she broke up with Jack.