Actor Nick Nolte, 74, has found getting old to be a painful experience, said Dave Rothbart in GQ . “I cry every day,” he says. “It’s nothing tragic or anything — it’s just life. I cry when I try to get out of bed, because I’m in my 70s and my body hurts like hell. Once my joints are moving, I’m all right, but those are my first tears in the morning.”
Nolte’s acute sense of morality is reinforced every time an old friend dies. “That’ll always bring on a good cry. Last summer, it was screenwriter and director Paul Mazursky. His wake was classic. I saw faces I hadn’t seen in years. Mel Brooks. Richard Dreyfuss. “It was a great wake, but then you can’t help but think about your own funeral.”
But Nolte says that perhaps the most painful consequence of growing old is seeing your children become involved in their own lives and slowly drift away. “My son is 28. We’ve had a close relationship all my life, but now that he’s gotten married and had his own family, he’s much more secretive. He’ll say, ‘That’s none of your business, Dad. Leave me alone.’ And that’s a sad one — letting go of your children. They have to put their own family and responsibilities first. There are no longer yours; they never really were.”