John Huston
Birthday:
5 August 1906, Nevada, Missouri, USA
Birth Name:
John Marcellus Huston
Height:
185 cm
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 included English, Scottish, and Scots-Irish. The age-old story ...
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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 included English, Scottish, and Scots-Irish. 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 (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 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. Show less «
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...Show more »
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. Show less «
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...Show more »
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?" Show less «
Half of directing is casting the right actors.
Half of directing is casting the right actors.
I prefer to think that God is not dead, just drunk.
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...Show more »
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. Show less «
I fail to see any continuity in my work from picture to picture.
I fail to see any continuity in my work from picture to picture.
I don't try to guess what a million people will like. It's hard enough to know what I like.
I don't try to guess what a million people will like. It's hard enough to know what I like.
I completely storyboarded The Maltese Falcon (1941) because I didn't want to lose face with the crew: I wanted to give the impression that I...Show more »
I completely storyboarded The Maltese Falcon (1941) because I didn't want to lose face with the crew: I wanted to give the impression that I knew what I was doing. Show less «
[from 1984] There is nothing more fascinating -- and more fun -- than making movies. Besides, I think I'm finally getting the hang of it.
[from 1984] There is nothing more fascinating -- and more fun -- than making movies. Besides, I think I'm finally getting the hang of it.
I'm told there is a Huston style; if so I'm not aware of it. I just make the film to its own requirements.
I'm told there is a Huston style; if so I'm not aware of it. I just make the film to its own requirements.
[on George C. Scott] One of the best actors alive. But my opinion of him as an actor is much higher than my opinion of him as a man.
[on George C. Scott] One of the best actors alive. But my opinion of him as an actor is much higher than my opinion of him as a man.
[on Jack Nicholson] I have great respect for him. Not only as an artist but as an individual. He has a fine eye for good paintings and a goo...Show more »
[on Jack Nicholson] I have great respect for him. Not only as an artist but as an individual. He has a fine eye for good paintings and a good ear for fine music. And he's a lovely man to drink with. A boon companion! I'd like to make more pictures with Jack Nicholson. Show less «
[on Paul Newman] Paul Newman is full of innovation. He has wonderful immediate ideas. Very often supplements mine, or has something better t...Show more »
[on Paul Newman] Paul Newman is full of innovation. He has wonderful immediate ideas. Very often supplements mine, or has something better than my notions. Some action perhaps. Show less «
[on Robert Mitchum] I think Bob is one of the very great actors and that his resources as an actor have never been fully tapped. He could be...Show more »
[on Robert Mitchum] I think Bob is one of the very great actors and that his resources as an actor have never been fully tapped. He could be a Shakespearean actor. In fact, I think that he could play King Lear. Show less «
[on Peter Lorre] Peter Lorre was one of the finest and most subtle actors I have ever worked with. Beneath that air of innocence he used to ...Show more »
[on Peter Lorre] Peter Lorre was one of the finest and most subtle actors I have ever worked with. Beneath that air of innocence he used to such effect, one sensed a Faustian worldliness. I'd know he was giving a good performance as we put it on film but I wouldn't know how good until I saw him in the rushes. Show less «
[on Clark Gable] Clark Gable was the only real he-man I've ever known, of all the actors I've met.
[on Clark Gable] Clark Gable was the only real he-man I've ever known, of all the actors I've met.
[on 'Humphrey Bogart' (qv] He was endowed with the greatest gift a man can have -- talent. The whole world came to recognize it. With the ye...Show more »
[on 'Humphrey Bogart' (qv] He was endowed with the greatest gift a man can have -- talent. The whole world came to recognize it. With the years he became increasingly aware of the dignity of his profession - Actor, not Star. Himself he never took seriously -- his work, most seriously. He regarded the somewhat gaudy figure of Bogart, the Star, with amused cynicism; Bogart the actor he held in great respect. He is quite irreplaceable. Show less «
[on his father Walter Huston] I hate stars. They're not actors. I've been around actors all my life and I like them, but I never had an acto...Show more »
[on his father Walter Huston] I hate stars. They're not actors. I've been around actors all my life and I like them, but I never had an actor as a friend. Except Dad. And Dad never thought of himself as an actor. But the best actor I ever worked with was Dad. Dad was a man who never tried to sell anybody anything. Show less «
[on Susannah York] Susannah was the personification of the uninformed arrogance of youth.
[on Susannah York] Susannah was the personification of the uninformed arrogance of youth.
[on Elisha Cook Jr.] Elisha Cook, Jr. lived alone up in the High Sierra, tied flies and caught golden trout between films. When he was wante...Show more »
[on Elisha Cook Jr.] Elisha Cook, Jr. lived alone up in the High Sierra, tied flies and caught golden trout between films. When he was wanted in Hollywood, they sent word up to his mountain cabin by courier. He would come down, do a picture and then withdraw again to his retreat. Show less «
[on Marlon Brando] Brando was something else entirely. Brando had an explosive thing; you felt something smoldering, dangerous, about to ign...Show more »
[on Marlon Brando] Brando was something else entirely. Brando had an explosive thing; you felt something smoldering, dangerous, about to ignite at times. Did you see Julius Caesar (1953)? Christ! I will never forget that; it was like a furnace door opening - the heat came off the screen. I don't know another actor who could do that. Show less «
I think the worst thing I ever saw Brando do was Apocalypse Now (1979), which was just dreadful - the finish of that picture. The model for ...Show more »
I think the worst thing I ever saw Brando do was Apocalypse Now (1979), which was just dreadful - the finish of that picture. The model for it, Heart of Darkness, has no finish either, and the movie-makers just didn't find one either. It's very good for a picture to have an ending before you start shooting! Show less «
[on Marilyn Monroe] Marilyn wasn't killed by Hollywood. The girl was an addict of sleeping tablets and she was made so by the goddamn doctor...Show more »
[on Marilyn Monroe] Marilyn wasn't killed by Hollywood. The girl was an addict of sleeping tablets and she was made so by the goddamn doctors. Show less «
Hollywood doesn't like actors who are British classical actors. They like Michael Caine because he's a sort of English Everyman. But the Lau...Show more »
Hollywood doesn't like actors who are British classical actors. They like Michael Caine because he's a sort of English Everyman. But the Laurence Oliviers and the John Gielguds and Richard Burtons are not and can't be an Everyman. They have some quality of aristocratic greatness that Hollywood finds threatening. Show less «
[on directing Marilyn Monroe in The Misfits (1961)] She went right down into her personal experience for everything, reached down and pulled...Show more »
[on directing Marilyn Monroe in The Misfits (1961)] She went right down into her personal experience for everything, reached down and pulled something out of herself that was unique and extraordinary. She had no techniques. It was all truth, it was only Marilyn. But it was Marilyn plus. She found things, found things about womankind in herself. Show less «
[on Albert Finney in Under the Volcano (1984)] I think it's the finest performance I have ever witnessed, let alone directed.
[on Albert Finney in Under the Volcano (1984)] I think it's the finest performance I have ever witnessed, let alone directed.
[On Jack Nicholson] Jack's a virtuoso. He can do the acting scales on one hand.
[On Jack Nicholson] Jack's a virtuoso. He can do the acting scales on one hand.
[accepting the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1983] An avuncular figure in my youth passed on a piece of advice his father had given him: 'Do...Show more »
[accepting the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1983] An avuncular figure in my youth passed on a piece of advice his father had given him: 'Don't work at anything simply for the money. Choose your profession as you would choose a wife, for love *and* for money.' I have faithfully abided by the first half of that dictum. Indeed, I have a confession to make: I have been so enamored with my work that I have always had a feeling of guilt about taking money for it. Maybe that's why I always got rid of it so quickly. It was like money you win at the races, not the rewards of honest toil. Show less «
On Mexico: It's one of the countries I like best in the world.
On Mexico: It's one of the countries I like best in the world.
I confess to having made films because they were in countries I wanted to visit.
I confess to having made films because they were in countries I wanted to visit.
So far as directing the actors and the crew is concerned, well I direct just as little as possible and I get as much from others as I possib...Show more »
So far as directing the actors and the crew is concerned, well I direct just as little as possible and I get as much from others as I possibly can. Some of the best ideas I've ever had have come from other people. Show less «
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