Jack Nicholson would love ''one last romance''.

The 77-year-old actor - who had an on/off relationship with actress Anjelica Huston throughout the late 1970s and 1980s and has been married once, to Sandra Knight from 1962 to 1968 - dreams of having another partner but admits he isn't ''very realistic'' about finding the right woman.

He said: ''I would love that one last romance. But I'm not very realistic about it happening. What I can't deny is my yearning.''

Jack - who has four children, Jennifer Nicholson, 51, Honey Hollman, 33, Lorraine Nicholson, 24, and 22-year-old Ray Nicholson - lives in a Mulholland Drive mansion in southern California but his kids are said to be trying to convince him to downsize.

A source told America's Closer Weekly magazine: ''He's afraid of dying alone in that house. They've been encouraging him to downsize and move into a more manageable place in Beverly Hills.''

Jack admitted four years ago that he used to feel ''oddly irresistible to women'' but no longer sees himself like that way and he doesn't feel comfortable trying to chat up a woman in public because he is too old.

Speaking in 2011, he said: ''I'm definitely still wild at heart. But I've struck bio-gravity. I can't hit on women in public any more. I didn't decide this; it just doesn't feel right at my age.

''If men are honest, everything they do and everywhere they go is for a chance to see women. There were points in my life where I felt oddly irresistible to women. I'm not in that state now and that makes me sad.

''But I also believe that a lot of the improvements in my character have come through ageing and the diminishing of powers. It's all a balancing act; you just have to get used to the ride.''