Movies
The Holy Grail of Jack Nicholson’s most legendary movie is found among 94 million photos: this is how the legend was created
The original photo was taken at the Royal Palace Hotel during a Valentine’s Day dance.
It has been more than 45 years since the premiere of “The Shining,” a masterpiece of horror that continues to pique the curiosity of viewers and researchers alike. At the end of the movie, there is a photo of Jack Nicholson’s character at a party at the Overlook Hotel, but what is the real origin of this image? British researcher Alasdair Spark has found the answer and discovered that the original photograph was taken on February 14, 1921 in the halls of the Royal Palace Hotel in Kensington.
New York Times reporter Aric Toler worked with Sparks to break the story. To get to the bottom of it, they sifted through millions of photos in the Getty Images archive. “At last, it has been found,” the scientist revealed. “Following the earlier identification by facial recognition software of the unknown man in the photograph at the end of ‘The Shining’ as Santos Casani, a London ballroom dancer, I can reveal that the photo was one of three taken by the Topical Press Agency at a St Valentines Day Ball, 14 February 1921, at the Empress Rooms, the Royal Palace Hotel, Kensington,” he explained.
A long and arduous task
Toler added that they combed through the newspaper’s archives to gather data and photos about the people who attended and the place where it was held, a task that required hours of hard work that did not bear fruit at first. “It was starting to seem impossible, every cross-reference to Casani failed to match. Other likely places that were suggested didn’t match. There were some places we could not find images for and we started to fear that meant the photo might be lost to history, and never be found.” But yes, it was eventually found.
The original photo surfaced after Toler contacted Murray Close, who worked as a photographer on ‘The Shining’ and was responsible for replacing the image of Casani’s face with Nicholson’s. “[He] recalled that the original had been sourced from the BBC Hulton Library.” The journalist contacted Getty Images, which holds the rights to the archive, to see if there were any photos licensed by Stanley Kubrick’s company, Hawk Films. A 1929 photograph of Santos Casani was found, but it was not the same one.
Close insisted that the photo had to be there, unless it had been lost, purchased, or removed from the archives. Despite the fact that there are more than 94 million snapshots, they kept searching until they finally found it. “Some Topical Press images had been re-indexed after the agency was acquired by the Hulton in 1958. An index card identifies the photo as licensed to Hawk Films on 10/10/78. The other interesting feature is that Santos Casani is identified in the daybook ledger under his previous name, John Golman. I had always assumed that his dancing career began with his change of name, but not so. He appears to be working with Belle Harding, a famous dance teacher herself, who is also credited at the event. A few months later, in June 1921, newspapers begin reporting on Casani, but there are no references to John Golman as a dancer (or otherwise) in the British Newspaper Archive for earlier in 1921. Joan Smith had said the photo dated from 1923. Stanley Kubrick had said 1921 and he was correct.”
The journalist admitted that the photo did not show “any of the celebrities” he had speculated might have been present. Only Jack Nicholson has been cropped out. “It shows a group of ordinary London people on a Monday evening. ‘All the best people’ as the manger of the Overlook Hotel said.”
The Shining, based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name, is available to stream on Prime Video.
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