ACTOR
John Huston
53 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (53)
- #001
John Huston was a licensed pilot and a prankster. During a celebrity tournament, he once flew over a golf course and dropped 5,000 ping-pong balls on the players.
- #002
John Huston is the only person to have directed a parent (Walter Huston) and a child (Anjelica Huston) to Oscar wins.
- #003
John Huston's closest friend, Humphrey Bogart, was nicknamed "Double Ugly" and "The Monster."
- #004
John Huston and his father, Walter Huston, were the first father-son pair to win Oscars. They were also the first father-son pair to be nominated in the same year (1941) and the first to win in the same year (1949).
- #005
John Huston's World War II documentary Let There Be Light (1946) was one of the first films to address the post-traumatic stress disorder (then called "shell shock") suffered by soldiers returning from war, though not the first. Huston said: "If I ever do a movie that glorifies war, somebody shoot me." The documentary was based on front-line experiences covering the war in Europe and on what soldiers went through during the war and saw as they returned from it.
- #006
John Huston 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 his daughter Anjelica Huston.
- #007
After John Huston and his wife Ricki separated, she became pregnant by another man. When she died, Huston brought his daughter Allegra Huston to live with him and adopted her.
- #008
John Huston was the amateur lightweight boxing champion of California.
- #009
Late in his life, John Huston was invited to lunch at Ronald Reagan's White House (along with 20 or more people noted in various fields). The hostess of the event was First Lady Nancy Davis, who had known Huston years earlier because her stepfather, Dr. Loyal Davis, had been Huston's doctor. Though an outspoken Democrat, Huston attended the lunch and kept up the spirit of courtesy and charm until Mrs. Reagan asked him whether he thought her husband was a better President than everyone expected. Smiling sweetly and still extremely polite, Huston replied: "Worse, my dear--far, FAR worse!" Mrs. Reagan's response was not recorded, but it was Huston's last visit to the White House.
- #010
John Huston directed his father, Walter Huston, in three films: The Maltese Falcon (1941), In This Our Life (1942) and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).
- #011
On September 25, 1933, while driving on Sunset Boulevard, John Huston accidentally struck and killed a Hollywood dancer, Tosca Roulien. Walter Huston appealed to MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer to use his influence with the LAPD regarding any questions about alcohol. A later investigation cleared Huston of all charges related to the accident.
- #012
The Huston family has three generations of Oscar winners: John, his father Walter Huston and his daughter Anjelica Huston. They were the first family to achieve this; the second was the Coppolas: Francis Ford Coppola, Sofia Coppola, Nicolas Cage and Carmine Coppola.
- #013
John Huston appeared with his daughter Anjelica Huston in the film A Walk with Love and Death (1969).
- #014
John Huston's character "Noah Cross" in Chinatown (1974) ranked 16th among the greatest screen villains of all time on the American Film Institute's 100 Heroes and Villains list.
- #015
During his marriage to Evelyn Keyes, while shooting The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) in Mexico, John Huston befriended a boy named Pablo Albarran. Pablo came to Huston's hotel one evening to spend the night, and the next morning Huston discovered the boy was a homeless orphan. Huston decided he had no choice but to bring him back to the United States and adopt him. In his autobiography he wrote that he met his wife Evelyn Keyes at the airport and surprised her by introducing her to their new son. She was shocked but from that moment did her best to be a good mother. The boy eventually married an Irish girl, had three children, then left his family and became a used-car salesman.
- #016
John Huston preferred to shoot his films on location rather than in a studio.
- #017
John Huston was initially considered for the role of the blind monk Jorge De Burgos in The Name of the Rose (1986). He accepted the part but had to withdraw because of his poor health.
- #018
John Huston became an Irish citizen in 1964.
- #019
John Huston said The MacKintosh Man (1973) was the worst film he ever directed.
- #020
In the last year of his life, John Huston could breathe on his own for only 20 minutes before he needed an oxygen mask.
- #021
In his commentary on the Catch-22 (1970) DVD, director Mike Nichols recalled seeing Huston on a payphone one day while shooting street scenes at Studi di Cinecittà in Rome. Huston was there to direct The Kremlin Letter (1970), widely regarded as the low point of his directing career. Nichols says that while the red light was on in the scene where "Kremlin" was being shot, Huston was on the phone placing bets with his bookmaker in the US. This meant that Huston's film was being shot but not directed by him. Nichols explains, cryptically, that films are made in this strange way.
- #022
John Huston was the son of Walter Huston.
- #023
John Huston was born in Nevada, Missouri, but grew up in Weatherford, Texas, until his family moved to Los Angeles, California.
- #024
John Huston was the father of Danny Huston through his relationship with Zoe Sallis.
- #025
John Huston was buried alongside his mother at Hollywood Memorial Park (now known as Hollywood Forever) in Hollywood, California, in the Garden of Legends (formerly Section 8), Lot 8, Grave 21. The stone for their markers was imported from Ireland.
- #026
John Huston was ranked the 13th Greatest Director of all time by "Entertainment Weekly".
- #027
Of the many films John Huston wrote and/or directed, most of them considered classics, he won only two Oscars, both for the same film: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), for screenwriting and directing.
- #028
Although John Huston was not diagnosed with emphysema until 1978, he is thought to have already developed lung disease while directing The Misfits (1961), after decades of heavy smoking.
- #029
John Huston was originally cast in Mr. North (1988), but was hospitalized with pneumonia. He personally asked Robert Mitchum to take over his role in the film. Mitchum did so by taking a break from shooting War and Remembrance (1988).
- #030
John Huston's maternal great-grandfather was Colonel William P. Richardson, who led the 25th Regiment of Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War.
- #031
John Huston originally planned to make 'The Man Who Would Be King' starring Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart, but Bogie's death put an end to it.
- #032
John Huston's son Tony Huston appeared alongside him in The List of Adrian Messenger (1963).
- #033
John Huston directed his daughter Anjelica Huston in five films: Casino Royale (1967), A Walk with Love and Death (1969), Sinful Davey (1969), Prizzi's Honor (1985) and The Dead (1987).
- #034
In February 1933, his car collided with a car driven by Zita Johann. He was fined 30 dollars.
- #035
John Huston directed four films nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture: The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Moulin Rouge (1952) and Prizzi's Honor (1985). He wrote the first three of these as well as the Best Picture nominees Jezebel (1938) and Sergeant York (1941). He also acted in Chinatown (1974), which was likewise nominated for Best Picture.
- #036
In May 2012, John Huston was honored with a United States postage stamp, alongside Frank Capra, John Ford and Billy Wilder.
- #037
John Huston received the D. W. Griffith Career Achievement Award in 1985.
- #038
John Huston directed both Katharine Hepburn and Audrey Hepburn.
- #039
From his marriage to Ricki Soma, John Huston was the father of Tony Huston and Anjelica Huston.
- #040
In 1984, John Huston received a lifetime achievement award at the Cannes Film Festival for his outstanding contributions to the art of cinema.
- #041
While in London at one point, John Huston hit a bad stretch and, rather than turning to his father or friends for help, sorted things out on his own, busking (singing) in London's Leicester Square and sleeping in Hyde Park during that time.
- #042
While living in Ireland, John Huston enjoyed fox hunting.
- #043
John Huston is the great-grandfather of Sage Lavinia Huston and Cypress Night Huston.
- #044
John Huston is the grandfather of Laura Huston and Jack Huston.
- #045
John Huston was the first of three Gandalfs who also appeared in a Sherlock Holmes film. He played Prof. Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes in New York (1976). Michael Hordern played the elderly Dr. Watson in Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), and Ian McKellen played Sherlock himself in Mr. Holmes (2015).
- #046
John Huston appeared in The Return of the King (1980), which was remade as The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) with Sean Astin. Astin's father, John Astin, played Gomez Addams in the television series The Addams Family (1964). In the Addams Family films, Anjelica Huston played Gomez's wife, Morticia.
- #047
John Huston's mother was a newspaper reporter.
- #048
In the 1960s, John Huston had a relationship with Min (Georgina) Hogg (London, 28 September 1938 – 25 June 2019, London), the founder and editor of World of Interiors magazine. He also had romantic ties with the photographers James Mortimer and Ray Rathborne.
- #049
John F. Kennedy's death saddened John Huston greatly.
- #050
Two of John Huston's films, Wise Blood (1979) and Under the Volcano (1984), are part of the Criterion Collection.
- #051
John Huston aimed to become a professional painter.
- #052
In 1949, John Huston was awarded the One World Committee Award.
- #053
John Huston was the father-in-law of Pat Delaney.
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