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The Religious Affiliation
Kirby Hensley
Founder of the Universal Life Church


The following section is slightly confusing. The author discusses the marriage of Jack Nicholson to Sandra Knight, stating that the ceremony was peformed by a Unitarian Universalist minister. Other sources, including Shepherd (page 40) state that a Unitarian Universalist minister performed this marriage ceremony. But then McGilligan uses a few sentences to describe the Universal Life Church, which is an organization completely separate from Unitarian Universalists. One must wonder if the author simply made a mistake when writing this paragraph, and accidentally looked up information about the Universal Life Church in order to fill out the paragraph. From: Patrick McGilligan, Jack's Life: A Biography of Jack Nicholson, W.W. Norton & Company: New York (1994), page 129:
The courtship was whirlwind, and Sandra Knight and Jack Nicholson were married on June 17, 1962. The best man was Harry Dean Stanton and best lady Millie Perkins, who had been married to--and divorced from--Dean Stockwell since they all met. The marriage certificate shows that the young couple were already cohabiting in a clapboard house at 7507 Lexington, around the corner from Jack's onetime bachelor digs on Fountain Avenue.

In a nontraditional gesture, the ceremony was performed by a Unitarian Universalist minister. Less than a year old, the Universal Life Church was an eclectic religion founded by a former Baptist minister out of his garage in Modesto, California. Among other concepts, the religion embraced world peace and reincarnation. Ordination was open to anyone.

"We wrote our own ceremony, long before that became the 'in' thing to do," Nicholson recalled in one interview. "I don't remember it anymore, but we inserted some quotes and I think we threw out the word 'obey.'"

Webpage created 2 October 2005. Last modified 2 October 2005.
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