| Administrative History | John Huston (1906-1987) was born in Nevada, Missouri, the son of actor and journalist Rhea Gore Huston. As a teen he moved with his mother to Los Angeles, where he attended Lincoln High School. He was raised by his maternal grandparents John Marcellus and Adelia, and was diagnosed with a serious illness at the age of 11. He dropped out of school at 14 to pursue boxing, then painting, studying the latter with Stanton MacDonald-Wright at the Arts Student League of Los Angeles. Huston pursued acting in New York with the Provincetown Players in 1924. He started writing short stories and worked as a reporter for a New York newspaper. In the early 1930s he travelled to London and Paris, living the Bohemian lifestyle.
Huston came to Hollywood as a writer in the early 1930s, under contract first with Samuel Goodwyn, then at Universal. Settling in Los Angeles in 1937, Huston found his niche as a writer with Warner Brothers. He scripted Jezebel (1938), Juarez (1939) and High Sierra (1941), among other films. His directorial debut was The Maltese Falcon (1941), for which he also wrote the screenplay. His directing career was interrupted by service in the Army Signals Corps, where he directed three documentaries. Back at Warner Brothers, Huston directed The Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948) and Key Largo (1948). During the HUAC investigation of Communism in Hollywood in the late 1940s, Huston was a member of the Committee for the First Amendment. Eventually disenfranchised, he moved to Ireland in 1952, and became an Irish citizen in 1964, taking up residence at St. Cleran's near Craughwell, County Galway. Huston went on to direct such pictures as The Asphalt Jungle (1950), Moulin Rouge (1952), Moby Dick (1956), The Misfits (1961), Freud (1962), The Night of the Iguana (1964), The Bible (1966), Wise Blood (1979), Under the Volcano (1984) and Prizzi's Honor (1985). His last film was The Dead (1987). As an actor Huston has appeared in The Cardinal (1963), Chinatown (1974), Wise Blood and The Treasure of Sierra Madre , among other films. Huston's children, Angelica, Danny and Tony, have all found work in acting and directing. John Huston received Academy Awards for writing and directing The Treasure of Sierra Madre in 1948. His 15 nominations span five decades and three categories (writing, directing and acting). Along with his father, Walter, and daughter, Angelica, he ensuring the Hustons became the only family who have won academy awards over three generations. |