Before They Were Stars: Jack Nicholson in “Little Shop of Horrors (1960)”

Most of you are probably familiar with the 1986 musical remake of Little Shop of Horrors, but you may not know that it was originally based on a 1960 low-budget Roger Corman non-musical horror-comedy that was shot in the span of two days! Before he became an A-list star, Jack Nicholson was the ultimate B-list actor, spending over a decade appearing in low-budget horror movies, biker flicks and westerns, many of them made by Mr. Corman. His most memorable of those roles was in the 1960 version of Little of Shop of Horrors, playing the role Bill Murray had in the remake as a masochistic dental patient. Despite its infamous low-budget history, the original Little Shop in Horrors is a fairly fun movie, but I’m sure no one envisioned that this wacky guy in the dentist’s chair would eventually go on to garner twelve Academy Award nominations!