''I sang 'Three Blind Mice' for two years in his class,'' Nicholson says, grinning with a mixture of pride and rue. ''It's an exercise Lee Strasberg invented, the song exercise, and the purpose of it is what's known as 'diagnosis of the instrument.'

Managua Nicaragua is actually a song from early '40s, I was singing it in the grammar school Variety show in a gold paper plate cape with a sort of bellboys monkey hat on. It was rather flamboyant I would say.