John Marcellus Huston was a Hollywood titan who reigned supreme as director, screenwriter, and character actor for over five decades. Born on August 5, 1906, in Nevada, Missouri, Huston's ancestry was English, Scottish, Scots-Irish, distant German, and very remote Portuguese. His grandfather allegedly won the town in a poker game.
Huston's father, Walter Huston, was a character actor, and his mother, Rhea Gore, was a newspaperwoman who traveled around the country looking for stories. Huston began performing on stage with his vaudevillian father at age 3. After his parents' divorce, he traveled with his father on the vaudeville circuit and with his mother on reporting excursions.
Huston was a frail and sickly child, once placed in a sanitarium due to an enlarged heart and kidney ailment. However, he made a miraculous recovery and quit school at age 14 to become a full-fledged boxer, winning the Amateur Lightweight Boxing Championship of California. His trademark broken nose was the result of his boxing days.
Huston married his high school sweetheart, Dorothy Harvey, and made his Broadway debut in 1925. He soon grew restless with his marriage and acting, abandoning both to become an officer in the Mexican cavalry and an expert horseman while writing plays on the sly. He later returned to America, attempting newspaper and magazine reporting work in New York, and was even hired by Samuel Goldwyn Jr. as a screenwriter.
Huston's career was marked by numerous marriages, including his union with Evelyn Keyes, the star of "Gone with the Wind." He directed Jean-Paul Sartre's experimental play "No Exit" on Broadway, earning the New York Drama Critics Award as "best foreign play." He also directed several classic films, including "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," "The African Queen," and "Moby Dick."
Huston was an ardent supporter of human rights and formed the Committee for the First Amendment in 1947 to combat the Hollywood blacklisting of the House Un-American Activities Committee. He later moved to Ireland, became a citizen, and married ballet dancer Enrica Soma. The couple had two children, including daughter Anjelica Huston, who went on to have an enviable Hollywood career.
Huston returned to acting in the 1960s, earning an Oscar nomination for his role in "The Cardinal." He continued to act in films throughout his life, including "Chinatown" and "The Wind and the Lion." He also directed several quality films in the 1970s, including "Fat City" and "The Man Who Would Be King."
Huston ended his career on a high note with films like "Under the Volcano," "Prizzi's Honor," and "The Dead." He died on August 28, 1987, at the age of 81, while shooting a cameo in the film "Mr. North" for his son Danny.
