Nicholson's first work in the film industry was as an usher at the El Rey Theatre in San Francisco when he was 16. He became a projectionist the following year and two years later bought his first theater. He was the manager of two theaters in Omaha, Nebraska. The chain that owned the theaters soon went out business and Nicholson found himself unemployed. He drifted through a series of short-lived jobs, and ended up running four revival movie theaters in Los Angeles with Joseph Moritz in 1944. He introduced new ways of attracting customers, including showing the 1949 Rose Bowl. Nicholson was eventually hired by Jack Broder at Realart Pictures in their advertising department; his job was to devise new campaigns for the old movies that Realart re-released, which often included retitling the films. A threat of a lawsuit from Alex Gordon, regarding a title similarity between one of Realart's reissues and a screenplay Gordon had written with Ed Wood with exactly the same title, led to Nicholson meeting Samuel Z. Arkoff, who was at that time Gordon's lawyer. Nicholson and Arkoff became friends and eventually decided to form American Releasing Corporation, a film distribution company, in 1954, in association with Moritz. Two years later they founded American International Pictures to make independent films for their circuit, with Nicholson as president.