Happy Birthday, John Huston! Born today in 1906 as John Marcellus Huston, this American visual artist, actor, screenwriter and film director's features involved themes such as religion, meaning, truth, freedom, psychology, colonialism, and war.
Huston had travelled widely, settling at various times in France, Mexico, and Ireland. He was a citizen of the United States by birth but renounced U.S. citizenship to become an Irish citizen and resident in 1964.
Huston later returned to the United States, where he lived the rest of his life. He wrote the screenplays for most of the thirty-seven feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics.
In his early years, Huston studied and worked as a fine art painter in Paris. He then moved to Mexico, and began writing, first plays and short stories.
He later working in Los Angeles as a Hollywood screenwriter. and was nominated for several Academy Awards writing for films directed by Howard Hawks and William Dieterle, among others.
His first directorial debut which, despite its small budget, became a commercial and critical hit; he would continue to be a successful, if iconoclastic, Hollywood director for the next forty-five years.
Huston later explored the visual aspects of his films throughout his career, sketching each scene on paper beforehand, then carefully framing his characters during the shooting.
While most directors rely on post-production editing to shape their final work, Huston instead created his films while they were being shot, with little editing needed.
Some of his films were adaptations of important novels, often depicting an "heroic quest," as in Moby Dick or The Red Badge of Courage.
In many films, different groups of people, while struggling toward a common goal, would become doomed, forming "destructive alliances," giving the films a dramatic and visual tension.
While he had done some stage acting in his youth, and had occasionally cast himself in bit parts in his own films, Huston primarily worked behind the camera until Otto Preminger.
After this, Huston continued to take prominent supporting roles for the next two decades.
Later on, he leant his booming baritone voice as a voice actor and narrator to a number of prominent films as well.
His last two films had both starred his oldest daughter Angelica Huston. This was while Huston was in failing health at the end of his life. However, both he and Angelica were nominated for multiple Academy Awards.
Huston passed shortly after completing his last film.
According to his personal life,Huston had been married three times. His most notable wives were his second and third.
The second was American film actress Evelyn Keys (m. 1946; div. 1950). She had been previously married to Hungarian film director Charles Vidor ('Gilda').
The third was American socialite, model, prima ballerina Enrica Soma (m. 1950; died 1969).
As an actor, Huston's most notable role was co-starring in Roman Polanski's 1974 American neo-noir mystery/crime film 'Chinatown'. This was as Noah Cross, the wealthy father of Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway).
‘The Maltese Falcon’ was one of the first twenty-five films selected by the Library of Congress to be included in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
On AFI’S 100 Years...100 Quotes list, “The stuff that dreams are made of” ranked it at #14.
In 1990, ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’ was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
On AFI’s 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes, “Badges? We ain't got no badges! We don’t need no badges! I don’t have to show you any stinking badges!” ranked in at #36.
In 1991, ‘The Battle of San Pietro’ was selected for the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The film was preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2005.
In 1994, ‘The African Queen’ was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1994, with the Library of Congress deeming it "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". The film was Humphrey Bogart’s first and only Oscar win.
In 2008, ‘The Asphalt Jungle’ was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, with the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Huston has been referred to as "a titan", "a rebel", and a "renaissance man" in the Hollywood film industry.
British non-fiction author and film magazine editor Ian Freer described Huston as "cinema's Ernest Hemingway"—a filmmaker who was "never afraid to tackle tough issues head on."
During his forty-six-year career, Huston had received fifteen Oscar nominations, winning twice. He had directed both his father, Walter Hudson, and daughter, Angelica, to Oscar wins.
Huston had been active from 1930–1987.
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