When Diane Gillings got a call that Compass Health had just received a $1,000 check for tonight’s fund-raiser, she didn’t recognize the donor’s name.
John J. Nicholson.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
“Jack!” came the response.
Jack as in Jack Nicholson the actor, star of the 1975 movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
“Oh my gosh!” Gillings said. “I have his autograph. … We need to make a photocopy of this.”
Nicholson had worked with Dr. Dean Brooks on the movie. Brooks, a retired psychiatrist and a member of the Compass Health board for 14 years, played the role of the head of the mental institution that Nicholson’s movie character checked into to avoid jail time.
Tonight’s event, which begins at 6 p.m. at the Historic Everett Theatre, is a tribute to Brooks and a fund-raiser for Compass Health. A documentary on the making of “Cuckoo’s Nest” will be shown.
Money from the event will benefit the Compass drop-in center for the homeless mentally ill, which closed in January because of a lack of funding.
The center, at 3322 Broadway in Everett, served 558 people last year, many of whom had severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
When it closed, the community responded.
“It’s amazing how many people have called and were very passionate that this is wrong: ‘Why are we not helping them?’” Gillings said.
Two donations of $30,000 each came from the EverTrust Foundation and Snohomish County’s Mental Health Advisory Board. The city of Everett will make a $3,000 donation tonight.
That guarantees that the center can open for a year, on a pared-down budget of $63,000. Compass Health hopes to reopen its drop-in center sometime in April, said Terry Clark, development director for the agency.
The $20,000 that Compass Health hopes to raise at tonight’s fund-raiser will go to help keep the center open beyond one year, Clark said. The center costs about $5,000 a month to operate.
Ticket sales and donations now total $16,000 of the $20,000 the organization hopes to raise.
Eight people, including several local businesses and individuals, have made $1,000 donations, Gillings said.
Nicholson is not the only person involved with the movie to make a donation, Gillings said. Co-producer Saul Zaentz donated $1,000, and director Milos Forman donated $100.
Reporter Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.
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