 He drifted through a series of short-lived jobs, including running four revival movie theaters in Los Angeles.Nicholson was eventually hired by Realart Pictures in their advertising department; his job was to devise new campaigns for the old movies that Realart re-released, which often included retitling the films.A threat of a lawsuit from Alex Gordon, regarding a title similarity between one of Realart's reissues and a screenplay Gordon had written with Ed Wood with exactly the same title, led to Nicholson meeting Samuel Z. Arkoff, who was at that time Gordon's lawyer.