Because the start of principal photography on "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was delayed, Jack Nicholson, who had worked with Nichols on "Carnal Knowledge", was available for the role of Oscar Sullivan. During filming, the actor was forced to deal with two events that impacted his personal life. First, a fact checker working on a biographical piece for "Time" discovered that the woman Nicholson believed was his sister was actually his mother, and the woman who raised him was his grandmother. Then his close friend Cass Elliot died in her sleep, and rumors about the cause of her death circulated in the media. These two events, linked with the film's eventual failure, made "The Fortune" a subject that Nicholson never discussed in interviews and biographies.