8 Infamous Movie Myths You Won't Believe Are Actually True

7. The Woman Jack Nicholson Thought Was His Sister Turned Out To Be His Mother

In a story that appears to have been ripped out of one of those cheap gossip magazines that you usually found strewn around railway stations, Jack Nicholson did genuinely discover one day that the woman he had always believed to be his sister was in fact... his mother. Can you imagine such a thing happening?

The better question, of course, is probably: how does such a thing happen? And why did ol' Jack's mother deceive him in such a bizarre fashion for so long?

During the making of Chinatown, Time Magazine called the actor up to check some facts for a cover story they were doing on him, among them that his sister, June Nicholson, was actually his mother. Nicholson denied this, because of course you would, but it actually turned out to be true. June - Nicholson's "sister" - had died years earlier, but the story was confirmed by another family member.

So why did this ever occur in the first place? June had gotten pregnant with Jack at a young age, apparently, and posed as his sister so she could continue her dance career.

Nicholson didn't even find any of this out until he was 37-years-old, by the way, making it even stranger.