John Huston(1906-1987)
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
An eccentric rebel of epic proportions, this Hollywood titan reigned
supreme as director, screenwriter and character actor in a career that
endured over five decades. The ten-time Oscar-nominated legend was born
John Marcellus Huston in Nevada, Missouri, on August 5, 1906. His
ancestry was English, Scottish, Scots-Irish, distant German and very remote Portuguese. The age-old story
goes that the small town of his birth was won by John's grandfather in
a poker game. John's father was the equally magnanimous character actor
Walter Huston, and his mother, Rhea Gore,
was a newspaperwoman who traveled around the country looking for
stories. The only child of the couple, John began performing on stage
with his vaudevillian father at age 3. Upon his parents' divorce at age
7, the young boy would take turns traveling around the vaudeville
circuit with his father and the country with his mother on reporting
excursions. A frail and sickly child, he was once placed in a
sanitarium due to both an enlarged heart and kidney ailment. Making a
miraculous recovery, he quit school at age 14 to become a full-fledged
boxer and eventually won the Amateur Lightweight Boxing Championship of
California, winning 22 of 25 bouts. His trademark broken nose was the
result of that robust activity.
John married his high school sweetheart, Dorothy Harvey, and also took
his first professional stage bow with a leading role off-Broadway
entitled "The Triumph of the Egg." He made his Broadway debut that same
year with "Ruint" on April 7, 1925, and followed that with another
Broadway show "Adam Solitaire" the following November. John soon grew
restless with the confines of both his marriage and acting and
abandoned both, taking a sojourn to Mexico where he became an officer
in the cavalry and expert horseman while writing plays on the sly.
Trying to control his wanderlust urges, he subsequently returned to
America and attempted newspaper and magazine reporting work in New York
by submitting short stories. He was even hired at one point by mogul
Samuel Goldwyn Jr. as a screenwriter,
but again he grew restless. During this time he also appeared unbilled
in a few obligatory films. By 1932 John was on the move again and left
for London and Paris where he studied painting and sketching. The
promising artist became a homeless beggar during one harrowing point.
Returning again to America in 1933, he played the title role in a
production of "Abraham Lincoln," only a few years after father Walter
portrayed the part on film for
D.W. Griffith. John made a new
resolve to hone in on his obvious writing skills and began
collaborating on a few scripts for Warner Brothers. He also married
again. Warners was so impressed with his talents that he was signed on
as both screenwriter and director for the
Dashiell Hammett mystery yarn
The Maltese Falcon (1941). The
movie classic made a superstar out of
Humphrey Bogart and is considered by
critics and audiences alike--- 65 years after the fact--- to be the
greatest detective film ever made. In the meantime John wrote/staged a
couple of Broadway plays, and in the aftermath of his mammoth screen
success directed bad-girl
'Bette Davis (I)' and good girl
Olivia de Havilland
in the film melodrama
In This Our Life (1942), and
three of his "Falcon" stars (Bogart,
Mary Astor and
Sydney Greenstreet) in the romantic
war picture
Across the Pacific (1942).
During WWII John served as a Signal Corps lieutenant and went on to
helm a number of film documentaries for the U.S. government including
the controversial
Let There Be Light (1980),
which father Walter narrated. The end of WWII also saw the end of his
second marriage. He married third wife
Evelyn Keyes, of "Gone With the Wind" fame,
in 1946 but it too lasted a relatively short time. That same year the
impulsive and always unpredictable Huston directed
Jean-Paul Sartre's experimental play
"No Exit" on Broadway. The show was a box-office bust (running less
than a month) but nevertheless earned the New York Drama Critics Award
as "best foreign play."
Hollywood glory came to him again in association with Bogart and Warner
Brothers'.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948),
a classic tale of gold, greed and man's inhumanity to man set in
Mexico, won John Oscars for both director and screenplay and his father
nabbed the "Best Supporting Actor" trophy. John can be glimpsed at the
beginning of the movie in a cameo playing a tourist, but he wouldn't
act again on film for a decade and a half. With the momentum in his
favor, John hung around in Hollywood this time to write and/or direct
some of the finest American cinema made including
Key Largo (1948) and
The African Queen (1951) (both
with Bogart),
The Asphalt Jungle (1950),
The Red Badge of Courage (1951)
and Moulin Rouge (1952). Later
films, including Moby Dick (1956),
The Unforgiven (1960),
The Misfits (1961),
Freud (1962),
The Night of the Iguana (1964)
and
The Bible in the Beginning... (1966)
were, for the most part, well-regarded but certainly not close to the
level of his earlier revered work. He also experimented
behind-the-camera with color effects and approached topics that most
others would not even broach, including homosexuality and
psychoanalysis.
An ardent supporter of human rights, he, along with director
William Wyler and others, dared to form
the Committee for the First Amendment in 1947, which strove to
undermine the House Un-American Activities Committee. Disgusted by the
Hollywood blacklisting that was killing the careers of many talented
folk, he moved to St. Clerans in Ireland and became a citizen there
along with his fourth wife, ballet dancer Enrica (Ricki) Soma. The
couple had two children, including daughter
Anjelica Huston who went on to have an
enviable Hollywood career of her own. Huston and wife Ricki split after
a son (director Danny Huston) was born to
another actress in 1962. They did not divorce, however, and remained
estranged until her sudden death in 1969 in a car accident. John
subsequently adopted his late wife's child from another union. The
ever-impulsive Huston would move yet again to Mexico where he married
(1972) and divorced (1977) his fifth and final wife, Celeste Shane.
Huston returned to acting auspiciously with a major role in
Otto Preminger's epic film
The Cardinal (1963) for which Huston
received an Oscar nomination at age 57. From that time forward, he
would be glimpsed here and there in a number of colorful, baggy-eyed
character roles in both good and bad (some positively abysmal) films
that, at the very least, helped finance his passion projects. The
former list included outstanding roles in
Chinatown (1974) and
The Wind and the Lion (1975),
while the latter comprised of hammy parts in such awful drek as
Candy (1968) and
Myra Breckinridge (1970).
Directing daughter Angelica in her inauspicious movie debut, the
thoroughly mediocre
A Walk with Love and Death (1969),
John made up for it 15 years later by directing her to Oscar glory in
the mob tale
Prizzi's Honor (1985). In the
1970s Huston resurged as a director of quality films with
Fat City (1972),
The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
and Wise Blood (1979). He ended his
career on a high note with
Under the Volcano (1984), the
afore-mentioned
Prizzi's Honor (1985) and
The Dead (1987). His only certifiable
misfire during that era was the elephantine musical version of
Annie (1982), though it later became
somewhat of a cult favorite among children.
Huston lived the macho, outdoors life, unencumbered by convention or
restrictions, and is often compared in style or flamboyancy to an
Ernest Hemingway or
Orson Welles. He was, in fact, the source
of inspiration for Clint Eastwood in the
helming of the film
White Hunter Black Heart (1990)
which chronicled the making of "The African Queen." Illness robbed
Huston of a good portion of his twilight years with chronic emphysema
the main culprit. As always, however, he continued to work tirelessly
while hooked up to an oxygen machine if need be. At the end, the living
legend was shooting an acting cameo in the film
Mr. North (1988) for his son Danny,
making his directorial bow at the time. John became seriously ill with
pneumonia and died while on location at the age of 81. This maverick of
a man's man who was once called "the eccentric's eccentric" by
Paul Newman, left an incredibly rich
legacy of work to be enjoyed by film lovers for centuries to come.
supreme as director, screenwriter and character actor in a career that
endured over five decades. The ten-time Oscar-nominated legend was born
John Marcellus Huston in Nevada, Missouri, on August 5, 1906. His
ancestry was English, Scottish, Scots-Irish, distant German and very remote Portuguese. The age-old story
goes that the small town of his birth was won by John's grandfather in
a poker game. John's father was the equally magnanimous character actor
Walter Huston, and his mother, Rhea Gore,
was a newspaperwoman who traveled around the country looking for
stories. The only child of the couple, John began performing on stage
with his vaudevillian father at age 3. Upon his parents' divorce at age
7, the young boy would take turns traveling around the vaudeville
circuit with his father and the country with his mother on reporting
excursions. A frail and sickly child, he was once placed in a
sanitarium due to both an enlarged heart and kidney ailment. Making a
miraculous recovery, he quit school at age 14 to become a full-fledged
boxer and eventually won the Amateur Lightweight Boxing Championship of
California, winning 22 of 25 bouts. His trademark broken nose was the
result of that robust activity.
John married his high school sweetheart, Dorothy Harvey, and also took
his first professional stage bow with a leading role off-Broadway
entitled "The Triumph of the Egg." He made his Broadway debut that same
year with "Ruint" on April 7, 1925, and followed that with another
Broadway show "Adam Solitaire" the following November. John soon grew
restless with the confines of both his marriage and acting and
abandoned both, taking a sojourn to Mexico where he became an officer
in the cavalry and expert horseman while writing plays on the sly.
Trying to control his wanderlust urges, he subsequently returned to
America and attempted newspaper and magazine reporting work in New York
by submitting short stories. He was even hired at one point by mogul
Samuel Goldwyn Jr. as a screenwriter,
but again he grew restless. During this time he also appeared unbilled
in a few obligatory films. By 1932 John was on the move again and left
for London and Paris where he studied painting and sketching. The
promising artist became a homeless beggar during one harrowing point.
Returning again to America in 1933, he played the title role in a
production of "Abraham Lincoln," only a few years after father Walter
portrayed the part on film for
D.W. Griffith. John made a new
resolve to hone in on his obvious writing skills and began
collaborating on a few scripts for Warner Brothers. He also married
again. Warners was so impressed with his talents that he was signed on
as both screenwriter and director for the
Dashiell Hammett mystery yarn
The Maltese Falcon (1941). The
movie classic made a superstar out of
Humphrey Bogart and is considered by
critics and audiences alike--- 65 years after the fact--- to be the
greatest detective film ever made. In the meantime John wrote/staged a
couple of Broadway plays, and in the aftermath of his mammoth screen
success directed bad-girl
'Bette Davis (I)' and good girl
Olivia de Havilland
in the film melodrama
In This Our Life (1942), and
three of his "Falcon" stars (Bogart,
Mary Astor and
Sydney Greenstreet) in the romantic
war picture
Across the Pacific (1942).
During WWII John served as a Signal Corps lieutenant and went on to
helm a number of film documentaries for the U.S. government including
the controversial
Let There Be Light (1980),
which father Walter narrated. The end of WWII also saw the end of his
second marriage. He married third wife
Evelyn Keyes, of "Gone With the Wind" fame,
in 1946 but it too lasted a relatively short time. That same year the
impulsive and always unpredictable Huston directed
Jean-Paul Sartre's experimental play
"No Exit" on Broadway. The show was a box-office bust (running less
than a month) but nevertheless earned the New York Drama Critics Award
as "best foreign play."
Hollywood glory came to him again in association with Bogart and Warner
Brothers'.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948),
a classic tale of gold, greed and man's inhumanity to man set in
Mexico, won John Oscars for both director and screenplay and his father
nabbed the "Best Supporting Actor" trophy. John can be glimpsed at the
beginning of the movie in a cameo playing a tourist, but he wouldn't
act again on film for a decade and a half. With the momentum in his
favor, John hung around in Hollywood this time to write and/or direct
some of the finest American cinema made including
Key Largo (1948) and
The African Queen (1951) (both
with Bogart),
The Asphalt Jungle (1950),
The Red Badge of Courage (1951)
and Moulin Rouge (1952). Later
films, including Moby Dick (1956),
The Unforgiven (1960),
The Misfits (1961),
Freud (1962),
The Night of the Iguana (1964)
and
The Bible in the Beginning... (1966)
were, for the most part, well-regarded but certainly not close to the
level of his earlier revered work. He also experimented
behind-the-camera with color effects and approached topics that most
others would not even broach, including homosexuality and
psychoanalysis.
An ardent supporter of human rights, he, along with director
William Wyler and others, dared to form
the Committee for the First Amendment in 1947, which strove to
undermine the House Un-American Activities Committee. Disgusted by the
Hollywood blacklisting that was killing the careers of many talented
folk, he moved to St. Clerans in Ireland and became a citizen there
along with his fourth wife, ballet dancer Enrica (Ricki) Soma. The
couple had two children, including daughter
Anjelica Huston who went on to have an
enviable Hollywood career of her own. Huston and wife Ricki split after
a son (director Danny Huston) was born to
another actress in 1962. They did not divorce, however, and remained
estranged until her sudden death in 1969 in a car accident. John
subsequently adopted his late wife's child from another union. The
ever-impulsive Huston would move yet again to Mexico where he married
(1972) and divorced (1977) his fifth and final wife, Celeste Shane.
Huston returned to acting auspiciously with a major role in
Otto Preminger's epic film
The Cardinal (1963) for which Huston
received an Oscar nomination at age 57. From that time forward, he
would be glimpsed here and there in a number of colorful, baggy-eyed
character roles in both good and bad (some positively abysmal) films
that, at the very least, helped finance his passion projects. The
former list included outstanding roles in
Chinatown (1974) and
The Wind and the Lion (1975),
while the latter comprised of hammy parts in such awful drek as
Candy (1968) and
Myra Breckinridge (1970).
Directing daughter Angelica in her inauspicious movie debut, the
thoroughly mediocre
A Walk with Love and Death (1969),
John made up for it 15 years later by directing her to Oscar glory in
the mob tale
Prizzi's Honor (1985). In the
1970s Huston resurged as a director of quality films with
Fat City (1972),
The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
and Wise Blood (1979). He ended his
career on a high note with
Under the Volcano (1984), the
afore-mentioned
Prizzi's Honor (1985) and
The Dead (1987). His only certifiable
misfire during that era was the elephantine musical version of
Annie (1982), though it later became
somewhat of a cult favorite among children.
Huston lived the macho, outdoors life, unencumbered by convention or
restrictions, and is often compared in style or flamboyancy to an
Ernest Hemingway or
Orson Welles. He was, in fact, the source
of inspiration for Clint Eastwood in the
helming of the film
White Hunter Black Heart (1990)
which chronicled the making of "The African Queen." Illness robbed
Huston of a good portion of his twilight years with chronic emphysema
the main culprit. As always, however, he continued to work tirelessly
while hooked up to an oxygen machine if need be. At the end, the living
legend was shooting an acting cameo in the film
Mr. North (1988) for his son Danny,
making his directorial bow at the time. John became seriously ill with
pneumonia and died while on location at the age of 81. This maverick of
a man's man who was once called "the eccentric's eccentric" by
Paul Newman, left an incredibly rich
legacy of work to be enjoyed by film lovers for centuries to come.