Five Easy Pieces of four: The title of "Five Easy Pieces" refers not to the women its hero makes along the road, for there are only three, but to a book of piano exercises he owned as a child. The film, one of the best American films, is about the distance between that boy, practicing to become a concert pianist, and the need he feels 20 years later to disguise himself as an oil-field rigger. When we sense the boy, tormented and insecure, trapped inside the adult man, "Five Easy Pieces" becomes a masterpiece of heartbreaking intensity... The movie is joyously alive to
Jack Nicholson dropped out of the project. Nicholson's only marriage was to Sandra Knight from June 17, 1962, to August 8, 1968; they had been separated for two years prior to the divorce. They had one daughter together, Jennifer (born September 16, 1963). Actress Susan Anspach contended that her son, Caleb Goddard (born September 26, 1970), was fathered by Nicholson. In 1984, Nicholson stated that he was not convinced he is Caleb's father; however, in 1996, Caleb stated that Nicholson had acknowledged him as his son. At some point between 1988 and 1994, Nicholson provided financial assistance to put Caleb through college,