John Huston, a name synonymous with cinematic rebellion and artistic versatility, stands as a towering figure in Hollywood history. Born John Marcellus Huston on August 5, 1906, in Nevada, Missouri, this ten-time Oscar-nominated legend carved a unique path as a director, screenwriter, and actor across a remarkable five-decade career. His lineage was a rich tapestry of English, Scottish, Scots-Irish, distant German, and even remote Portuguese ancestry, and his very birthplace was rumored to be the winnings of a poker game by his grandfather – a fittingly unconventional start for a man who would become an iconoclast in the film industry.
Huston’s father was the acclaimed character actor Walter Huston, and his mother, Rhea Gore, was a spirited newspaperwoman, constantly seeking stories across the country. As their only child, John’s life was immersed in the performing arts from the tender age of three, when he began sharing the stage with his vaudevillian father. Following his parents’ divorce when he was seven, his childhood was split between the dazzling lights of the vaudeville circuit with his father and the adventurous world of journalism with his mother. Despite a frail constitution in his early years, even spending time in a sanitarium for heart and kidney issues, Huston displayed an early resilience. He defied expectations by making a miraculous recovery and, at the young age of 14, traded schoolbooks for boxing gloves. He quickly rose in the ranks, becoming a skilled pugilist, ultimately claiming the Amateur Lightweight Boxing Championship of California after winning an impressive 22 out of 25 matches – his trademark broken nose a permanent badge of honor from this period.
Huston’s restless spirit extended beyond the ring. He married his high school sweetheart, Dorothy Harvey, and simultaneously ventured into professional acting, landing a leading role in the off-Broadway production “The Triumph of the Egg.” His Broadway debut followed swiftly in 1925 with “Ruint,” and he continued with “Adam Solitaire” the following November. However, the confines of both marriage and acting soon proved too restrictive for Huston’s adventurous nature. He abandoned both and journeyed to Mexico, transforming himself into a cavalry officer and skilled horseman, all while secretly nurturing his writing talents by penning plays. His wanderlust eventually drew him back to America, where he attempted to settle into newspaper and magazine reporting in New York, even trying his hand at short story writing. Briefly, he found himself in Hollywood, hired as a screenwriter by Samuel Goldwyn Jr., but again, the lure of the unconventional proved too strong. During this period, he also made a few uncredited appearances in films, foreshadowing his later return to acting. By 1932, Huston was on the move once more, this time to Europe, immersing himself in the artistic circles of London and Paris, studying painting and sketching. His time as a budding artist took a harsh turn, leading him to experience homelessness and poverty as a beggar on the streets.
In 1933, Huston returned to the United States, taking on the lead role in a stage production of “Abraham Lincoln,” a role his father Walter had famously portrayed on film for D.W. Griffith just a few years prior. This marked a turning point as Huston resolved to focus on his undeniable writing abilities and began collaborating on screenplays for Warner Brothers. He also remarried. Warner Bros. recognized his exceptional talent and offered him the chance to both write and direct the film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s thrilling mystery novel, The Maltese Falcon (1941). This cinematic masterpiece catapulted Humphrey Bogart to superstardom and, decades later, remains lauded as one of the greatest detective films ever created. Amidst this burgeoning film career, Huston also wrote and directed a couple of Broadway plays. Following the monumental success of The Maltese Falcon, he directed Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland in the melodrama In This Our Life (1942), and reunited with three of his Falcon stars – Bogart, Mary Astor, and Sydney Greenstreet – for the wartime romance Across the Pacific (1942). During World War II, Huston served as a Signal Corps lieutenant, directing several documentaries for the U.S. government, including the powerful and controversial Let There Be Light (1946), narrated by his father, Walter. The end of the war also marked the end of his second marriage. In 1946, he married his third wife, Evelyn Keyes, known for her role in Gone With the Wind, but this union, too, proved short-lived. That same year, the perpetually restless Huston directed Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential play “No Exit” on Broadway. Despite its brief run and box-office failure, the play garnered critical acclaim, winning the New York Drama Critics Award for “best foreign play.”
Hollywood stardom solidified for John Huston with The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), again in collaboration with Bogart and Warner Brothers. This classic tale of greed and human nature, set against the backdrop of Mexico, earned Huston Oscars for both Best Director and Best Screenplay, while his father, Walter, received the Best Supporting Actor award. John himself made a brief cameo at the film’s beginning as a tourist, but he would not act on screen again for another fifteen years. Riding this wave of success, Huston remained in Hollywood, writing and directing some of the most iconic films in American cinema, including Key Largo (1948) and The African Queen (1951), both starring Bogart, as well as The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The Red Badge of Courage (1951), and Moulin Rouge (1952). His later filmography, encompassing titles like 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 generally well-received, although they didn’t quite reach the same revered status as his earlier works. Huston was a constant innovator, experimenting with color and tackling unconventional themes, including homosexuality and psychoanalysis, that most filmmakers avoided.
A passionate advocate for human rights, Huston, alongside director William Wyler and others, bravely established the Committee for the First Amendment in 1947, challenging the House Un-American Activities Committee. Disgusted by the Hollywood blacklist that destroyed the careers of many talented individuals, he relocated to St. Clerans in Ireland, becoming an Irish citizen with his fourth wife, ballet dancer Enrica (Ricki) Soma. They had two children, including daughter Anjelica Huston, who would follow in her family’s footsteps to achieve her own celebrated Hollywood career. Huston and Ricki separated after his son Danny Huston (also a director) was born to another actress in 1962. Despite the separation, they remained married until her tragic death in a car accident in 1969. John subsequently adopted his late wife’s child from a previous relationship. Never one to stay in one place for long, Huston moved again to Mexico, where he married (1972) and divorced (1977) his fifth and final wife, Celeste Shane.
Huston’s return to acting in Otto Preminger’s epic The Cardinal (1963) marked a significant moment, earning him an Oscar nomination at the age of 57. From then on, he frequently appeared in colorful character roles in a mix of both critically acclaimed and commercially unsuccessful films. While some of these roles were in less distinguished projects like Candy (1968) and Myra Breckinridge (1970), they provided the financial means for him to pursue his more personal “passion projects.” Among his notable acting roles were performances in classics like Chinatown (1974) and The Man Who Would Be King (1975).
After directing his daughter Angelica in her less-than-stellar film debut, A Walk with Love and Death (1969), Huston redeemed himself fifteen years later by directing her to Oscar victory in the mob comedy-drama Prizzi’s Honor (1985). The 1970s saw a resurgence in Huston’s directing career with acclaimed films such as Fat City (1972), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), and Wise Blood (1979). He concluded his illustrious career with a string of successes including Under the Volcano (1984), the aforementioned Prizzi’s Honor (1985), and The Dead (1987). His only major misstep during this period was the large-scale musical adaptation of Annie (1982), although it later gained a cult following, particularly among children.
John Huston lived a life of rugged masculinity and unconventionality, often drawing comparisons to literary figures like Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles in his style and flamboyance. He even served as the inspiration for Clint Eastwood’s film White Hunter Black Heart (1990), which depicted the making of The African Queen. In his later years, chronic emphysema took a toll on his health, but even while battling illness and reliant on oxygen, Huston remained tirelessly dedicated to his work. At the time of his death at 81, he was filming an acting cameo in Mr. North (1988), directed by his son Danny. John Huston, once dubbed “the eccentric’s eccentric” by Paul Newman, left behind an extraordinary and enduring legacy for cinema lovers to cherish for generations to come.
