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Representing the third generation of Hustons to win an Academy Award, Anjelica Huston finally emerged from the shadows of father John and long-time beau Jack Nicholson to parlay her striking, off-beat beauty and “deep class” (as termed by Nicholson) into a career as an actress of great strength and emotional range. Though she managed to survive a disastrous starring debut in her father’s “A Walk with Love and Death” (1969), the howls of nepotism that nearly ended her career before it began did cause her to withdraw temporarily from the profession. Raised in Ireland and London, the statuesque Huston relocated to New York after the death of her mother, the former ballerina Enrica Soma, and enjoyed a successful career as a model, becoming a favorite of heavyweight photographers like Richard Avedon and Helmut Newton. When she decided to return to acting, her father informed her unceremoniously that she was “too old,” and it was not until she moved out of Nicholson’s home that her career started to take off.

Huston re-launched her screen career with a small part in “The Last Tycoon” (1976), directed by Elia Kazan, and also appeared as a lion tamer involved with Nicholson in Bob Rafelson’s remake of “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (1981) but was finding it increasingly hard to land auditions when her friendship with Penny Marshall led to guest appearances on ABC’s “Laverne and Shirley” in 1982 and 1983. A role as a swaggering, tough-talking Amazon in the harmless space romp “The Ice Pirates” (1984) allowed her to have fun and gain confidence before “Prizzi’s Honor” (1985) teamed her with her two biggest influences. Bringing an intense sexual voltage and blissfully coarse tenderness to her role as Maerose Prizzi, she stole the spotlight from the film’s stars Nicholson and Kathleen Turner. Her electrifying performance as the vengeful mob daughter brought her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar to go with those earned by her father and grandfather Walter for “The Treasure of Sierra Madre” (1948).

After playing a witch opposite Michael Jackson in Francis Ford Coppola’s 3-D fantasy short “Captain Eo” (1986), Huston tackled her first leading role in Coppola’s disappointing “Gardens of Stone” (1987), portraying an independent, politically-aware Washington Post reporter who falls in love with a career Army sergeant (James Caan) whose beliefs about the Vietnam War—and the world—are dramatically opposed to her own. “Prizzi’s Honor” had brought father and daughter closer together, and building on that, she starred as a romantic Irish wife trapped in a loveless marriage for his final directing effort, “The Dead” (also 1987), a moving coda (scripted by brother Tony) to a distinguished career, drawing critical raves and a limited box office. John Huston’s emphysema had required him to wear an oxygen mask on that film’s set, and his frailness prevented him from acting in the next family affair, half-brother Danny’s directing debut “Mr. North” (1988). Co-scripted and produced by the elder Huston, it traded on her aura of sophisticated authority for her role as a mysterious, wealthy widow.

Over the next few years, Huston became established as a terrific character actress, putting glamour on hold to honestly explore a series of visceral parts. She delivered an appropriately shrill turn as Martin Landau’s desperate, neglected mistress in Woody Allen’s “Crimes and Misdemeanors” (1989) and earned another Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination as a delightfully cynical Holocaust survivor whose return complicates the life of her re-married husband (Ron Silver) in Paul Mazursky’s “Enemies: A Love Story” (both 1989). Huston offered a tour de force and earned a Best Actress nod as a hardened con-artist vying with another con for the love of her estranged son (John Cusack) in “The Grifters” (1990). Earlier the same year, she returned to the ranks of witches with a superbly over-the-top performance that complemented the wizardry of Jim Henson’s creature shop in Nicholas Roeg’s “The Witches”, adapted from the book by Roald Dahl.

Huston moved into lighter territory as the elegantly ghoulish Morticia Addams in “The Addams Family” (1991) and “Addams Family Values” and helped inflame Diane Keaton’s Nancy Drew streak in a more comic second venture with Allen, “Manhattan Murder Mystery” (both 1993). That year also saw her in a small role in HBO’s acclaimed AIDS chronicle, “And the Band Played On”, as well as playing the mother of an autistic son in the ABC movie “Family Pictures”. Sean Penn’s “The Crossing Guard” (1995) offered a chance for redemption in its pairing of Huston with ex-beau Nicholson as a divorced couple coping with the hit and run death of their daughter, and she brought some of her same conflicting passion from “Prizzi’s Honor” to her role as a Cuban wife separated from her husband (Alfred Molina) for 20 years in “The Perez Family” (both 1995). The CBS miniseries “Buffalo Girls” (also 1995) transported her back to the West as envisioned by novelist Larry McMurtry. Having garnered her first Emmy nomination for the 1989 CBS miniseries “Lonesome Dove”, based on McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, she earned another for her starring turn as Buffalo Gal Calamity Jane.

Following in the family tradition, Huston stepped behind the cameras to direct the film adaptation of “Bastard Out of Carolina” (1996), originally shot as a made-for-TV movie for Ted Turner’s TNT network. Although the picture revealed her almost maternalistic talent for coaxing performances from children, Turner refused to air it, deeming its harsh subject matter—rape and child abuse—inappropriate for advertiser-supported TV. When he did allow Huston to shop the film around for another distributor, several other basic cable channels, including Lifetime and USA, passed on it, echoing his concerns. After its debut at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival elicited a mixture of shock and admiration, Showtime, who had ironically developed the project prior to TNT’s involvement, reacquired it and hyped it saying, “See the movie no other network would show you.” Huston was back in front of the camera for three 1998 movies, playing Vincent Gallo’s Buffalo Bills-obsessed mother in Gallo’s “Buffalo 66″, the evil stepmother in Andy Tennant’s “Ever After” take on the Cinderella story and the love interest of Ray Liotta in the mediocre crime pic “Phoenix” (HBO).

Huston returned to the director’s chair for “Agnes Browne” (1999), an old-fashioned melodrama about a young Dublin widow struggling to support her large family in 1967, which again showcased her remarkable facility for working with children. She also upped the ante this time, starring in the picture as well, reveling in the kind of role an actress of her generation finds so seldom in feature films. Co-adapted by Brendan O’Carroll from his best-selling Irish novel “The Mammy”, the picture provided a perfect showcase for an accent born of the actress’ Irish upbringing, while the realization of Agnes’ simple dream to buy a ticket to an upcoming Tom Jones concert unfolded like a warm-hearted, whimsical fable. Huston’s best moments opposite Marion O’Dwyer as her best friend were full of affection and unexpressed emotions, and her feisty, likable performance made up for the over-sentimentality of the story. She then satisfied her taste for literate scripts by appearing in her first Merchant-Ivory-Jhabvala production, “The Golden Bowl” (2000). In 2001, further praise came for her supporting role in the much-admired indie “The Man From Elysian Fields” and Huston gave a memorable performance in her role as the mother of an eccentric family in director Wes Anderson’s critically acclaimed “Royal Tenenbaums,’ and she was nominated for an Emmy in 2002 for her role as Viviene the Lady of the Lake in TNT’s “The Mists of Avalon.” Lesser roles in the crime drama “Blood Work” (2002) and the hit comedy “Daddy Day Care” (2003), Huston was again seen at the top of her game with another Emmy-nominated turn in HBO suffragette telepic “Iron Jawed Angels” (2004) as Carrie Chapman Catt. She rejoined Anderson for the less successful “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” (2004) in an alternately brittle and warm turn as Bill Murray’s estranged wife. In 2005, Huston won a Golden Globe Award—her first—for Best Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for her performance in “Iron Jawed Angels.”

• Also Credited As:
  Anjelica Huston
• Born:
  on 07/08/1951 in Santa Monica, California
• Job Titles:
  Actor, Director, Producer, Model

Family

• Brother: Tony Huston. born on April 15, 1950; mother, Enrica Soma; wrote screenplay for “The Dead” (1987), directed by father and starring sister Anjelica; married to actress Pat Delaney
• Father: John Huston. born on August 5, 1906; died on August 28, 1987; worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter before directing “The Maltese Falcon” (1941); subsequently made “The African Queen” (1951), “Moby Dick” (1956), “The Night of the Iguana” (1964), “Fat City” (1972), and “The Man Who Would Be King” (1975), among others; earned Oscars for directing and scripting “The Treasure of Sierra Madre”
• Grandfather: Walter Huston. born on April 6, 1884; died on April 6, 1950; played leading roles in many important American films of the 1930s and 40s, including “American Madness” (1932), “Dodsworth” (1936), “The Devil and Daniel Webster” (1941), “And Then There Were None” (1945) and “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948), directed by his son John and for which he won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor
• Half-brother: Danny Huston. born on May 14, 1962; mother, Zoe Sallis; formerly married to Virginia Madsen; directed “Mr. North” (1987), John Huston’s final film (as executive producer and co-screenwriter; was to have acted in it), which also starred Anjelica
• Half-sister: Allegra Huston. born c. 1963; mother, Enrica Soma; father was a titled Englishman; adopted by John Huston and raised by him after his wife’s tragic death
• Mother: Enrica Soma. born in 1930; Huston’s fourth wife; married to Huston from 1950 until her death at age 39 in an auto accident in 1969; lived apart after 1962; had child, Allegra, with titled Englishman; Huston raised her as his daughter

Significant Others

• Husband: Robert Graham. born c. 1938; married in May 1992
• Companion: Bob Richardson. met on a fashion shoot when Huston was still in her teens; according to Richardson, maintained a relationship until the early 1980s
• Companion: Jack Nicholson. together from c. 1973; lived together until c. 1983 when she moved out and bought a place nearby; relationship continued until c. 1989 when she learned Nicholson was having a child with another woman

Milestones

• — Co-starres with Aaron Eckhart in Neil LaBute’s “Vapor” (lensed 2004)
• 1961 Moved to London at age ten (date approximate)
• 1967 Auditioned for the role of Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s film version of “Romeo and Juliet”; reportedly was considered for the role until father intervened allowing Olivia Hussey to be cast
• 1969 Feature film acting debut an uncredited appearance in father’s “Sinful Davey”
• 1969 First starring film role, “A Walk With Love and Death”, directed by her father (who also co-starred as her uncle, Robert the Elder); performance was panned by critics
• 1969 Moved to NYC after mother’s death and continued to understudy Marianne Faithful in the role of Ophelia for the Broadway production of “Hamlet”, originally staged by Tony Richardson in England; appeared as a Court Lady when the vehicle was filmed
• 1971 Began modeling for Vogue, among other magazines, when photographer (and old friend of Huston’s mother) Richard Avedon asked her to do a 30-page fashion shoot in Ireland
• 1973 Moved to Los Angeles
• 1976 Returned to the screen in Elia Kazan’s “The Last Tycoon” (based on F Scott Fitzgerald’s unfinished novel), her first film with Jack Nicholson
• 1981 Second film with Nicholson, Bob Rafelson’s remake of “The Postman Always Rings Twice”; played a lion tamer
• 1982 Acted in episodes of “Laverne and Shirley” (ABC), playing a model with an Eiffel Tower on her head in one
• 1984 Career received a boost when cast as an Amazon with guns and swords on her hips in the space shoot-em-up “The Ice Pirates”
• 1984 Had a small role in Rob Reiner’s feature directing debut, “This Is Spinal Tap”
• 1984 TV-movie debut, “The Cowboy and the Ballerina” (CBS)
• 1985 Breakthrough screen role as the Mafia princess in “Prizzi’s Honor”, directed by father; third film with Nicholson; won Best Supporting Actress Oscar
• 1985 Played title role in Los Angeles stage production of “Tamara”
• 1986 Joined Michael Jackson and Dick Shawn in Francis Ford Coppola’s 17-minute, 3-D musical fantasy short “Captain Eo”, produced for showing at the Disney theme parks
• 1987 Reunited with Coppola for “Gardens of Stone”; first leading role
• 1987 Starred as a woman in a loveless marriage in father’s last film, “The Dead”, adapted by brother Tony from James Joyce’s concluding short story in his youthful “Dubliners” collection
• 1988 Acted in half-brother Danny’s “Mr. North”, co-adapted by father from Thornton Wilder’s last novel
• 1989 First film with director Woody Allen, “Crimes and Misdemeanors”, playing desperate (and eventually murdered) mistress of Martin Landau
• 1989 Miniseries debut in a starring role, “Lonesome Dove” (CBS); earned first Emmy nomination; first time acting in a project adapted from the work of Larry McMurtry, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel
• 1989 Received a Best Supporting Oscar nomination as a Nazi concentration camp survivor in Paul Mazursky’s “Enemies, a Love Story”
• 1990 Acted the part of the Grand High Witch in Nicolas Roeg’s “The Witches”, based on the book by Roald Dahl
• 1990 Nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award nomination as the platinum-haired con artist in “The Grifters”
• 1991 Portrayed the eerie-but-elegant Morticia Addams in “The Addams Family”
• 1992 Appeared as herself in Robert Altman’s “The Player”
• 1992 Narrated the “Rip Van Winkle” segment of Showtime’s “American Heroes & Legends”
• 1993 Offered a strong performance as the mother of an autistic child in the ABC miniseries “Family Pictures”
• 1993 Played Doctor Betsy Reisz in HBO’s moving, acclaimed “And the Band Played On”, which traced the course of the AIDS crisis
• 1993 Reprised Morticia for “Addams Family Values”
• 1993 Reteamed with Allen for “Manhattan Murder Mystery”
• 1995 Portrayed Calamity Jane in the CBS minieries “Buffalo Girls”, adapted from McMurtry’s novel; earned second Emmy nomination
• 1995 Reteamed with Nicholson to play an estranged couple in Sean Penn’s “The Crossing Guard”
• 1996 Made directorial debut with “Bastard Out of Carolina” and received an Emmy nomination for her efforts; film was originally shot for TNT but the network would not air it over the content; shown at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival; became Showtime’s highest-rated program when it aired on that network later in the year
• 1998 Acted in Danny Cannon’s mediocre crime film “Phoenix” (HBO), portraying Ray Liotta’s love interest
• 1998 Played Vincent Gallo’s Buffalo Bills-crazed mom in Gallo’s “Buffalo 66″
• 1998 Portrayed the evil stepmother in “Ever After”, Andy Tennant’s take on the Cinderella story
• 1999 Directed, co-produced and starred in “Agnes Browne”, playing a widowed mother of seven in 1960s Ireland
• 2000 Appeared in James Ivory’s “The Golden Bowl”, based on the Henry James novel (and produced by Ismail Merchant with screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala); screened at Cannes
• 2001 Played the matriarch in a family of failed geniuses in “The Royal Tenenbaums” directed by Wes Anderson
• 2001 Portrayed the Lady in the Lake in the TNT feminist retelling of the Arthurian legend “The Mists of Avalon”
• 2002 Starred opposite Clint Eastwood in “Blood Work” (lensed 2002)
• 2003 Co-starred opposite Hilary Swank in the HBO movie “Iron Jawed Angels,” about how American women got the vote in 1920; received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie (2004)
• 2004 Co-starred with Bill Murray in Wes Anderson’s”The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” as Zissou’s (Murray) estranged wife
• 2005 Directed Rosie O’Donnell and Andie MacDowell in the CBS movie “Riding the Bus With My Sister,” based on the book of the same name
• 2006 Cast in Terry Zwigoff’s adaptation of Daniel Clowes’ comic story “Art School Confidential”
• 2006 Guest-starred as an unorthodox psychiatrist in a four episode stint on the Showtime series “Huff”
• Involved in a serious car accident which refocused both her life and her acting ambitions
• Moved to Ireland as an infant; lived at St Clerans, an estate in Galway