Jack Torrance

John Daniel Edward "Jack" Torrance is the villain protagonist in Stephen King's horror novel The Shining (1977). He was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the novel's 1980 film adaptation, by Steven Weber in the 1997 miniseries, by Brian Mulligan in the 2016 opera and by Henry Thomas in the 2019 film adaptation of Doctor Sleep. The American Film Institute rated the character (as played by Nicholson) the 25th-greatest film villain of all time. In 2008, Jack Torrance was selected by Empire magazine as one of the 100 greatest movie characters. Premiere magazine also ranked Torrance on their list of their 100 greatest movie characters of all time. Biography In novels Jack grew up in Berlin, New Hampshire, where his father, Mark Torrance, worked in the Regional Community Hospital. He also has three older siblings: Brett, Becky, and Mike. He is a writer, former teacher, and debate team coach whose alcoholism and volatile temper costs him his teaching position at Stovington Preparatory School, when he assaults George Hatfield, a student and former member of the debate team, whom he catches vandalizing his car. Later, his drinking nearly ends his marriage to his wife, Wendy, after he breaks his son Danny's arm in a blind rage. He finally decides to quit drinking after a drunk driving crash in which he and a friend run over an abandoned bicycle in the road and realize they could've killed a child. He accepts a position maintaining the isolated Overlook Hotel in Colorado for the winter, hoping this will salvage his family, re-establish his career, and give him the time and privacy to finish a promising play. He moves to the hotel with Wendy and Danny, who is telepathic and sensitive to supernatural forces. Danny receives guidance from an imaginary friend he calls "Tony." Danny is also comforted by meeting the hotel's kindly cook, Dick Hallorann, who shares Danny's telepathic abilities. It is later revealed that Jack's father, also an alcoholic, was abusive towards his family. A flashback scene in the novel shows his drunk father brutally bashing Jack's mother with a cane.