Trivia

A licensed pilot--and a prankster. He once flew over a golf course during a celebrity tournament and dropped 5,000 ping-pong balls on the players.

He is the only person to have ever directed a parent (Walter Huston) and a child (Anjelica Huston) to Academy Award wins.

His best friend Humphrey Bogart nicknamed Huston "Double Ugly" and "The Monster.".

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).

His WW II documentary Que la lumière soit (1980) was one of the first films, if not the first film, to deal with the issue of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD, called "shell shock" at the time) of soldiers returning from the war. Huston actually said that "If I ever do a movie that glorifies war, somebody shoot me." He based the documentary on his frontline experiences covering the European war and what he saw soldiers go through during and returning from the war.

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.

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.

Ava Gardner was quoted as saying that her three films with Huston were "the only joy and fun I've ever had working in motion pictures".

Once described Charles Bronson as "a grenade with the pin pulled".

Late in his life he was invited to the Ronald Reagan White House for lunch (along with 20 or more other people, well-known in a variety of fields). The hostess for the occasion was the First Lady herself, Nancy Davis, who had known Huston slightly many years earlier because her stepfather, Dr. Loyal Davis, was Huston's doctor. Although he was an outspoken Democrat, Huston attended the lunch and was the soul of tact and charm until Mrs. Reagan asked him if he didn't think that her husband had turned out to be an even better President than everyone had expected. Smiling sweetly and still exuding the utmost affability, Huston replied, "Worse, my dear--far, FAR worse!" Mrs. Reagan's response is not recorded, but it was Huston's last visit to the White House.

Was amateur lightweight boxing champion of California.

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 Le barbare et la geisha (1958) that Wayne lost his temper and punched Huston, knocking him out cold.

Daughter Anjelica Huston was born while he was shooting La Reine africaine (1951) in Africa. He received the news of her birth by telegram.

He directed his father Walter Huston in three films: Le faucon maltais (1941), L'amour n'est pas un jeu (1942) and Le Trésor de la Sierra Madre (1948).

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.

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.

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 Le faucon maltais (1941)). Both would eventually be directed by the other: Huston played in De l'autre côté du vent (2018) and Welles in Moby Dick (1956), Les racines du ciel (1958) and La lettre du Kremlin (1970).

Preferred to film his movies on location rather than in the studio.

During his marriage to Evelyn Keyes, he had a pet monkey. Fed up with the noise and the mess, Keyes finally told Huston that either she or the monkey would have to leave. "Honey," replied Huston, "it's you!".

Is one of the few people to receive at least one Oscar nomination in five consecutive decades (1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s).

He was 79 years old when he was nominated for Best Director for L'honneur des Prizzi (1985), making him the oldest person ever to be nominated in that category.

While shooting Le Trésor de la Sierra Madre (1948) in Mexico during his marriage to Evelyn Keyes, he befriended a boy named Pablo Albarran. 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 US and adopt him. He wrote in his autobiography that he met his wife Evelyn Keyes 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.

Appeared with daughter Anjelica Huston in Promenade avec l'amour et la mort (1969).

At various times he was an amateur boxing champion, a lieutenant in the Mexican cavalry, a London street singer, a painter in Paris, a crime reporter and a playwright all before he was 30.

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.

He married his fourth wife, Enrica "Ricki" Soma, when he was 43 and she was 20. It was an open marriage and both had children with other partners in the early 1960s, and they never divorced.

He was first considered to star as the blind monk Jorge De Burgos in Le Nom de la rose (1986). He accepted the part but had to leave due to his bad health.

Clint Eastwood's Chasseur blanc, coeur noir (1990) is about the making of Huston's movie La Reine africaine (1951). The movie is based upon a screenplay by Peter Viertel, Huston's assistant during the making of "The African Queen". The character Eastwood plays is based upon Huston.

Became an Irish citizen in 1964.

He usually spoke kindly of his ex-wives, with the notable exception of his fifth wife, Celeste Shane, who was over 30 years his junior. Their marriage lasted only three years, and in his autobiography, published some five years after their divorce, he refused to mention her by name, referring to her only as "a crocodile". On talk shows he often said it was the only one of his marriages he regretted. Curiously, his devoted daughter Anjelica Huston has said many times that she really liked her stepmother. Even after their split he continued to let his adopted daughter Allegra Huston live with Celeste and her son.

Producer Walter Mirisch complained that Huston acted unprofessionally in the post-production period after shooting Davey des grands chemins (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," 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 unprofessional." The two, who had worked together on Huston's 1956 adaptation of Herman Melville's Moby Dick (1956), never collaborated again.

Has said that Le piège (1973) is the worst movie he ever directed.

He has directed six films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Le faucon maltais (1941), La bataille de San Pietro (1945), Que la lumière soit (1980), Le Trésor de la Sierra Madre (1948), Quand la ville dort (1950) and La Reine africaine (1951). He wrote all of those films in addition to L'insoumise (1938), Les hauts de Hurlevent (1939), Sergent York (1941) and Les tueurs (1946), all of which are in the registry as well. He has also appeared in one film that is in the registry: Chinatown (1974).

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. He was at Cinecittà helming La lettre du Kremlin (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.

Born in Nevada, Missouri, but raised in Weatherford, Texas, until his family moved to Los Angeles, California.

By the last year of his life he could only breathe for 20 minutes at a time before needing an oxygen mask.

Father of Danny Huston, from his relationship with Zoe Sallis.

Son of Walter Huston.

Was buried with his mother at Hollywood Memorial Park (now called Hollywood Forever) in Hollywood, California, Garden of Legends (formerly Section 8), Lot 8, Grave 21. The stone for their marker was imported from Ireland.

Was voted the 13th Greatest Director of all time by "Entertainment Weekly".

Out of all the many films he wrote and/or directed--many considered classics--he only won two Oscars and they were both for the same film - Le Trésor de la Sierra Madre (1948), which won for screenplay and direction.

Although not diagnosed with emphysema until 1978, it is widely believed he was already developing the lung disease while directing Les désaxés (1961), following decades of heavy smoking.

Was awarded with the D.W. Griffith Career Achievement Award in 1985.

Son Tony Huston appeared with him in Le dernier de la liste (1963).

Maternal great-grandfather was Col. William P. Richardson who led the 25th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War.

Became an Honorary Doctor of Literature at the Trinity University in Dublin, Ireland, in 1964.

Originally cast in Mr. North (1988), but was hospitalized with pneumonia. He personally requested Robert Mitchum to play his part in the film. Mitchum did so on a break from filming Les orages de la guerre (1988).

He had originally planned to make a film of 'The Man Who Would be King' with Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart in the lead roles but Bogies death put a stop to it.

He has directed four films that have been nominated for the Oscar Best Picture: Le faucon maltais (1941), Le Trésor de la Sierra Madre (1948), Moulin Rouge (1952) and L'honneur des Prizzi (1985). He wrote the first three of those as well as the Best Picture nominees L'insoumise (1938) and Sergent York (1941). He has also appeared in one Best Picture nominee: Chinatown (1974).

Honored on a US Postage Stamp in May 2012 (along with Frank Capra, John Ford, and Billy Wilder).