Jack Nicholson once wrote a screenplay about a struggling Hollywood actor trying to raise the cash for his girlfriend's abortion - but the project was cast aside for its risqué plot.

And now no one can find the script - because the movie executive who passed on the raw screenplay in the early 1960s is now dead, and he never made a copy of Nicholson's .

Universal ' former story editor Michael Ludmer has brought the lost script to the attention of the Los Angeles Times newspaper, insisting Nicholson's screenplay, titled To Hold A Mirror, will "make a fine movie even today."

Ludmer says, "It was a story editor's dream come true - riveting, thoughtful and, above all, entertaining."

Nicholson, then a little-known B-movie star, had planned on directing and starring in the film, but Universal boss Julian Ludwig refused to greenlight the project because he feared it would be an X-rated movie.

Contacted by the Times, Nicholson's longtime agent, Sandy Breisler, had no recollection of the script.