Home> Facts and Trivia > Stars > John Huston
John Huston Facts
| Sign | Leo |
| Born |
Aug 5, 1906 Nevada, MO |
| Died |
Aug 28, 1987 Middletown, RI |
| Age | Died at 81 |
| Total Facts | 50 |
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.
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.
After he and wife Ricki separated, she became pregnant by another man. When she died, Huston brought her daughter, Allegra Huston, to live with him and adopted her.
Although Huston was often described as being 6' 4" tall, his actual measured height at his peak was 6' 2".
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.
Appeared with daughter Anjelica Huston in A Walk with Love and Death (1969).
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' wife Morticia.
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!"
Became an Honorary Doctor of Literature at the Trinity University in Dublin, Ireland in 1964.
Became an Irish citizen in 1964.
Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives." Volume Two, 1986-1990, pages 446-448. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999.
Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945." Pages 484-493. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.
Born in Nevada, Missouri but was raised in Weatherford, Texas until his family moved to Los Angeles.
Daughter Anjelica Huston was born while he was shooting The African Queen (1951) in Africa. He received the news of her birth by telegram.
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 Huston
Father of Tony Huston and Anjelica Huston, from his marriage to Ricki Soma.
Father of Danny Huston, from his relationship with Zoe Sallis.
Father-in-law of Pat Delaney.
Former father-in-law of Virginia Madsen.
Got the D.W. Griffith Career Achievement Award in 1985.
Grandfather of Laura Huston and Jack Huston.
Has said that The MacKintosh Man (1973) (1973) is the worst movie he ever directed.
He and Orson Welles were good friends from the 1940s to Welles' death in 1985. Both men coincidentally made their spectacular debut as directors in 1941 (Welles with Citizen Kane (1941) and Huston with The Maltese Falcon (1941)). Both would eventually be directed by the other: Welles' had a cameo in Huston's adaptation of Moby Dick (1956) and Huston played the lead in Welles' unfinished The Other Side of the Wind (1972).
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).
He is the only person to have ever directed a parent (Walter Huston) and a child (Anjelica Huston) to Academy Award wins.
He was first considered to star as the blind monk Jorge De Burgos in The Name of the Rose (1986). He accepted the part but had to leave due to his bad health.
His character "Noah Cross" in Chinatown (1974) was ranked the #16 greatest screen villain of all time on the American Film Institute's 100 Heroes and Villains list.
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.
Huston 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.
In February 1933, his car collided with one being driven by Zita Johann, and was fined $30.
In his 2008 memoir. "I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History," producer Walter Mirisch says that he vetoed Huston's desire to use his daughter Anjelica Huston as his leading lady opposite John Hurt in Sinful Davey (1969), the story of a Scottish rakehell. Mirisch was worried that the inexperienced Angelica, who had appeared in only one other film at the time, A Walk with Love and Death (1969), also directed by her father, would have to adopt a Scottish accent for the role. In addition, Mirisch felt that "...her appearance was rather more Italian than Scottish, and in stature she towered over John Hurt. John [Huston] and I then had a serious falling out about casting Angelica." (For the record, Angelica is officially listed as 5' 10" tall and Hurt at 5' 9".) The producer and his director butted heads over Huston's insistence that his daughter play the female lead, but Huston finally capitulated, and Pamela Franklin was cast instead. (Angelica Huston appears in the finished film in an uncredited bit part.) The picture flopped, but Mirisch believe
In the 5th edition of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (edited by Steven Jay Schneider), 9 of Huston's films are listed: The Maltese Falcon (1941), San Pietro (1945), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The African Queen (1951), Beat the Devil (1953), Fat City (1972), Prizzi's Honor (1985) and The Dead (1987).
Interred at Hollywood Memorial Cemetery (now called Hollywood Forever), Hollywood, California, USA.
Is one of the few people to receive at least one Oscar nomination in five consecutive decades (1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s).
Maternal great-grandfather was Col. William P. Richardson who led the 25th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War.
Mother was newspaper reporter.
Once described Charles Bronson as "a grenade with the pin pulled".
Producer Walter Mirisch complains that Huston acted unprofessionally in the post-production period after the shooting of Sinful Davey (1969). The initial preview of Huston's cut of the film in New York was disastrous, and Huston refused to cut the film after attending another preview, informing Mirisch via his agent that "he liked it just the way it is." Huston's agent informed Mirisch that his client "didn't see any reason to be present at previews." United Artists, which financed the film, was upset over the previews and demanded a re-edit. Huston refused to re-cut the picture, and the re-editing process was overseen by Mirisch. "Sinful Davey" was a failure at the box office after it was released. In his 2008 memoir, "I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History," Walter Mirisch writes that, "John Huston, in his autobiography, said that he was aghast when he saw what I had done in the re-editing of his picture. Responding to preview criticism, I had tried to make it less draggy and more accessible to American audiences.... I saw John Huston again on a couple of occasions, many years after the release of "Sinful Davey," and he was very cold, as I was to him. I thought his behavior in abandoning the picture was u
Son Tony Huston appeared with him in The List of Adrian Messenger (1963).
Son of actor Walter Huston, whom he directed in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).
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.
Was amateur lightweight boxing champion of California.
Was awarded the "One World Committee Award" in 1949.
Was best friends with Humphrey Bogart.
Was 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.
Was originally supposed to direct Quo Vadis (1951), but walked out following arguments about the script. He was replaced by Mervyn LeRoy.
Was voted the 13th Greatest Director of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
When he married his fourth wife, Enrica "Ricki" Soma, he was 44 while she was only 20. They separated after ten years of marriage. They subsequently each had another child with other partners, but never divorced each other.
While 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.