Does anyone feel like Simmons kind of short-shrifts Jack Nicholson? Whenever he makes his lists of "biggest stars" of the 70s or late 70s or early 80s or whatever, it's usually DeNiro and Pacino, Newman, Redford and depending on how he's feeling Eastwood, Beatty, or if he's talking about a Dustin Hoffman movie, Hoffman. And that's not a bad list! It's like 85% of the way there.
But man, Nicholson was a BIG FUCKING STAR from the early 70s all the way through the 90s! Arguably the biggest. He was nominated for 4 Best Actor awards between 1971 and 1976 (!) and 2 Best Supporting Actor awards between 1982 and 1984, and I think you'd be hard pressed to argue any of them were undeserved. Then he entered Pacino territory a bit and got a whole bunch of nominations, some earned some probably not, between '86 and '03.
I don't know if it's just because Nicholson's 70s run was a little more arty than what Simmons' dad liked to watch growing up (Five Easy Pieces is a great movie but not really rewatchable), but it just seems like of all the big stars that should be right in Simmons wheelhouse, Nicholson is curiously overlooked.