About Me
[A Tribute By
Carletto di San Giovanni:]
myspace.com/giancarletto
www.directorspotlight.com
IMDB Mini BiographyAn 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 of Scottish and Irish heritage in Nevada, Missouri, on August 5, 1906. 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 legendary 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, John 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, at age 18, 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 reporting work in New York while submitting short stories to different newspapers and magazines. 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 (1946), 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 impetuous 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 colour 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 a bravura Hollywood career of her own. Huston and his third wife split after the birth of his son (and subsequent director) Danny Huston, 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 (often excruciatingly bad) 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 movie debut, the mediocre A Walk with Love and Death (1969), he made up for it 15 years later by directing her to an Oscar in the mob tale Prizzi's Honor (1985). In the 1970s Huston resurged as a director with such quality films as Fat City (1972),another epic, The Man Who Would Be King (1975) and Wise Blood (1979), and 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 truly certifiable misfire during that era was the elephantine musical version of Annie (1982).Huston lived the macho, outdoors life, unencumbered by convention or restrictions, compared in style or flamboyance to an Ernest Hemingway or Orson Welles. He was, in fact, the source of inspiration for Clint Eastwood in helming 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, often hooked up to an oxygen machine. At the end, the living legend was shooting an acting cameo in the film Mr. North (1988) for his son Danny, who was making his directorial bow. He became seriously ill with pneumonia and died while on location at the age of 81. This maverick of a man who was once called "the eccentric's eccentric" by Paul Newman, leaves an incredibly rich legacy of work to be enjoyed by lovers of film for centuries to come.
IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh
Personal Quotes:"I've lived a number of lives. I'm inclined to envy the man who leads one life, with one job, and one wife, in one country, under one God. It may not be a very exciting existence, but at least by the time he's seventy-three he knows how old he is."On remakes: "There is a wilful lemming-like persistance in remaking past successes time after time. They can't make them as good as they are in our memories, but they go on doing them and each time it's a disaster. Why don't we remake some of our bad pictures - I'd love another shot at 'Roots of Heaven' - and make them good?""Half of directing is casting the right actors.""I prefer to think that God is not dead, just drunk.""The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world. A picture is made. You put a frame around it and move on. And one day you die. That is all there is to it."
TRIVIA:At one time he kept a pet monkey. His wife of the time, Evelyn Keyes, became fed up with the noise and the mess and told Huston that either she or the monkey would have to leave. "Honey," replied Huston, "it's you!"Son of actor Walter Huston, whom he directed in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).Son Tony Huston appeared with him in The List of Adrian Messenger (1963).Appeared with daughter Anjelica Huston in A Walk with Love and Death (1969).Interred at Hollywood Memorial Cemetery (now called Hollywood Forever), Hollywood, California, USA.Became an Irish citizen in 1964.He is the only person to have ever directed a parent (Walter Huston) and a child (Anjelica Huston) to Academy Award wins.Father-in-law of Pat Delaney.Father of Danny Huston, from his relationship with Zoe SallisHuston was a licenced pilot...and a prankster. He once flew over a golf course and dropped 5,000 ping-pong balls while a celebrity golf tournament was in progress.Was voted the 13th Greatest Director of all time by Entertainment Weekly.Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890- 1945". Pages 484-493. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.After he and wife Ricki separated, she became pregnant by another man. When she died, Huston brought her daughter Allegra to live with him and adopted her.Father of Tony Huston and Anjelica Huston, from his marriage to Ricki SomaWhile making a movie in Mexico during his marriage to Evelyn Keyes, he befriended a boy named Pablo. Pablo came to spend the night at Huston's hotel one evening, and Huston discovered the next morning that the boy was a homeless orphan. Huston decided that he had no choice but to bring him back to the USA and adopt him. He wrote in his autobiography that he met his wife Evelyn at the airport and surprised her by introducing her to their new son. She was in shock, but from then on did her best to be a good mother. He eventually married an Irish girl, had three children, then deserted his family and became a used car dealer.Directed 15 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Sydney Greenstreet, Walter Huston, Claire Trevor, Sam Jaffe, Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, José Ferrer, Colette Marchand, Deborah Kerr, Grayson Hall, Susan Tyrrell, Albert Finney, Anjelica Huston, Jack Nicholson and William Hickey. Bogart and Trevor won Oscars for their performances, as did Huston's father Walter Huston and daughter Anjelica HustonIs portrayed by William Frankfather in This Year's Blonde (1980) (TV)He and his father Walter Huston are the first Oscar-winning father-son couple. They are also the first father-son couple to be Oscar-nominated the same year (1941) and the first to win the same year (1949).Is portrayed by John Ireland in Marilyn: The Untold Story (1980) (TV)Once described Charles Bronson as "a grenade with the pin pulled".Former father-in-law of Virginia MadsenWas known to have a mean streak when handling actors, and reportedly irritated John Wayne (who was slightly taller than Huston and much more massive) so much while filming The Barbarian and the Geisha (1958) that Wayne lost his temper and punched Huston, knocking him out cold.Although Huston was often described as being 6' 4" tall, his actual measured height at his peak was 6' 2".Appears in The Return of the King (1980) (TV), which was remade as The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) with Sean Astin. Astin's father John Astin appeared in "The Addams Family" (1964) television series, playing Gomez Addams. The Addams Family films starred Anjelica Huston as Gomez's wife Morticia.There are three generations of Oscar winners in the Huston family: John, his father Walter Huston and his daughter Anjelica Huston. They are the first family to do so, the second family were the Coppolas - Francis Ford Coppola, Sofia Coppola, Nicolas Cage and Carmine Coppola.His WW II documentary Let There Be Light (1946) was one of the first, if not the first, films to deal with the issue of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder of soldiers returning from the war. Huston actually said that "If I ever do a movie that glorifies war, somebody shoot me". This documentary was based on his front-line experiences covering the European war and what he saw soldiers go through during and returning from the war.Born in Nevada, Missouri but was raised in Weatherford, Texas until his family moved to Los Angeles.Was amateur lightweight boxing champion of California.Mother was newspaper reporter.Maternal great-grandfather was Col. William P. Richardson who led the 25th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War.He was first considered to star as the blind monk Jorge De Burgos in Name der Rose, Der (1986). He accepted the part but had to leave due to his bad health.Accidentally struck and killed a Hollywood dancer, Tosca Roulien, while driving on Sunset Boulevard on September 25, 1933. Walter Huston appealed to MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer to use his influence with the LAPD regarding any questions of alcohol being involved. A subsequent inquest absolved Huston of any blame for the accident.Although not diagnosed with emphysema until 1978, it is widely believed he was already developing the lung disease while directing The Misfits (1961), following decades of heavy smoking.Clint Eastwood's movie White Hunter Black Heart (1990) is about the making of Huston's movie The African Queen (1951). The movie is based upon a screenplay by Peter Viertel, Huston's assistant during the making of The African Queen (1951). The character Eastwood plays is based upon Huston.Mike Nichols, in the director's commentary on the Catch-22 (1970) DVD, recalled that one day he was shooting street scenes at Rome's Studi di Cinecittà when he saw Huston at a pay phone. Huston was at Cinecittà helming The Kremlin Letter (1970), considered by many to be the nadir of his directorial career. Nichols says that Huston was on the phone placing bets with his bookie back in the US while the red light of the soundstage in which "Kremlin" was being shot was on. This meant that Huston's movie was being shot, but that it was not being directed by him. Such is the strange way by which movies were made, Nichols explains cryptically.
