Nick Nolte mother worked in a department store and father was an irrigation pump sales.  He played as a kicker in football, a defensive and tight end in basketball and a catcher in the baseball team while in School. However because of poor grade, he was not able to continue his studies.

He started his career in modeling in 1960s and in 1970s.  He was a model for Summer Blonde used for hair lightening and he was also on its packaging cover. For his acting, he appeared first in Rich Man, Poor Man, a movie that was based on the bestselling novel of Irwin Shawn. From that time, he got many roles and he appeared in more than 40 films.  He played in different character and he had a trademark of gravelly voice and athleticism.  His breakthrough was The Deep and he played with Robert Shaw and in Jacqueline Bisset.

Nick Nolte married three times and all marriages ended in divorces.   His wives were Rebecca Linger whom they had a son together, Sharyn Haddad and Sheila Page. His son is also an actor and he featured in different movies such as Ransom where he plays as the son of Mel Gibson who had been kidnapped.  He was also a boyfriend to Vicki Lewis and Debra Winger.  He is in long relationship with Clytie Lane and they have a daughter together.

In 1965, he was found guilty of selling counterfeited documents and was sentenced for 45 years with a fine of 75,000 dollars. Even if this sentence was suspended, it prevented him from going to Vietnam War and he says that  he felt useless when he was a young man because he was not allowed to join in military.

In 2002, he was arrested under the suspicion of drunken driving. However he was under GHB and three days afterwards he checked in the Silver Hill Hospital to be counseled. He was released on a year probation.  

Nick Nolte has a net worth of 75 million dollars.  Most of his money was made from the acting salary of more than 40 movies he played.  In the beginning of his career, Nick Nolte agrees that he did played with the media were he gave wrong information about himself especially about his private life. He said that he wanted the public to have a fiction person to follow up. This is why there is no published information or biography that can be relied on about his life. This all is about his divorces, his drug use and recovering from alcohol.  The public was to draw from the troubled past as he portrays a broken man at the path towards the redemption. He attended Arizona State University and he showed some talent as the football player but he was expelled because of having bad grades.