Huston has received several Emmy and Golden Globe nominations, and won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television for her role in Iron-Jawed Angels (2004).
Born: Jul 08, 1951 in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, California
Occupation: Actor, Director
Active: '80s-2000s
Major Genres: Drama, Comedy
Career Highlights: The Grifters, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Prizzi's Honor
First Major Screen Credit: A Walk With Love and Death (1969)
Biography
The daughter of director John Huston and his fourth wife, ballerina Ricki Somma, Anjelica Huston spent a privileged but troubled childhood in Ireland. Although her father didn't really want her to be an actress, he gave her substantial roles in his films Sinful Davy and A Walk With Love and Death (both 1969). The actress did little movie work during the '70s, choosing instead to pursue a successful, albeit short-term, career as a model before returning to films with a vengeance in the '80s, diligently studying with famed drama coach Peggy Feury.
In 1985, Huston earned an Oscar for her performance as the vengeful girlfriend of hit man Jack Nicholson in Prizzi's Honor, making her the first third-generation Academy winner in history. Other worthwhile roles followed in her father's final directorial effort, The Dead (1987), and Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). She was also rewardingly directed by her half-brother Danny Huston in Mr. North (1988). Huston earned additional Oscar nominations for her outstanding dramatic work in Enemies: A Love Story (1989) and The Grifters (1990). On a lighter note, she was ideally cast as Morticia Addams in the two Addams Family movies in the early '90s; neither was recognized by the Academy, although both earned her Golden Globe nominations. Despite her breakup with long-time companion Nicholson (she went on to marry Robert Graham in 1992), Huston still occasionally acted opposite him, most notably in Sean Penn's The Crossing Guard (1995). Other notable roles for the actress during the late '90s included her turn as the wicked stepmother in Ever After (1998) and a hilarious portrayal of a football-obsessed, dysfunctional mother in Buffalo '66.
In addition to her work on film, Huston accumulated an impressive roster of television credits during the 1980s and '90s, including her powerful performances as frontier woman Clara Allen in the 1989 miniseries Lonesome Dove and the beleaguered mother of an autistic child in the two-part Family Pictures (1993). She also had a supporting role in the widely acclaimed 1993 production of And the Band Played On. In 1996, Huston made her directorial debut with Bastard out of Carolina, a praised adaptation of Dorothy Allison's novel of the same name, and followed that up with another behind-the-camera effort, Agnes Browne, in 1999. She played Gene Hackman's estranged wife in the critically-acclaimed The Royal Tenenbaums in 2001. She appeared opposite Clint Eastwood in his police drama Blood Work. She continued to appear in a wide variety of films including an officious antagonist in Daddy Day Care. In 2004 she reteamed with Wes Anderson for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and played in the made for cable historical drama Iron Jawed Angels. In 2006 Huston took on a small role in Terry Zwigoff's Art School Confidential, and appeared in Martha Coolidge's Material Girls opposite Hilary and Haylie Duff. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Anjelica Huston was born in Santa Monica, California, and is the daughter of director and actor John Huston and Italian-American prima ballerina Enrica 'Ricki' (née Soma), from New York.[1] Huston spent most of her childhood in Ireland and England. She grew up in Saint Clerns House near Craughwell, County Galway. In 1969, she began taking a few small roles in her father's movies. In that same year, her mother, who was 39 years old, died in a car accident, and Huston relocated to the United States, where she modeled for several years. She has an older brother Tony, a younger maternal half-sister named Allegra, whom she called "Legs", and a younger paternal half-brother Danny.
Acting career
Anjelica Huston with her brother at the 62nd Annual Academy Awards in 1990
Deciding to focus more on movies, in the late 1970s she seriously studied acting. Her first notable role was in Bob Rafelson's remake of the The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981). She costarred with Jack Nicholson, with whom she had a romantic relationship since 1973. Later, her father cast her as the calculating, imperious Maerose, daughter of a Mafia don whose love is scorned by a hit man (Nicholson again) in his film adaptation of Richard Condon's Mafia-satire novel Prizzi's Honor (1985). Huston won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance, making her the first person in Academy Award history to win an Oscar when a parent and a grandparent had also won one.
Huston thereafter worked prolifically, notably earning another Oscar nomination for her portrayal of an iron-willed con artist in Stephen Frears' The Grifters (1990), this time for Best Actress. A sentimental favorite was her performance as the lead in her father's final film, an adaptation of James Joyce's The Dead (1987).
Huston has recently expanded her horizons, following in her father’s footsteps in the director’s chair. Her first directorial credit was Bastard Out of Carolina (1996), followed by Agnes Browne (1999), in which she both directed and starred, and then Riding the Bus with My Sister (2005).
Political activism
In 2007, Huston led a letter campaign organized by the U.S. Campaign for Burma and Human Rights Action Center. The letter, signed by over twenty five high-profile individuals from the entertainment business, was addressed to the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and urged him to "personally intervene" to secure the release of Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma.[2]
Huston has donated $2000 to Democratic political candidates John Kerry and Dick Gephardt.
Huston has recorded a public service announcement urging her colleagues in Hollywood to refrain from using great apes as slave labour in television, movies and advertisements.[3]
Personal life
While working as a model in her teens during the late 1960s, Huston had a relationship with photographer Bob Richardson, who was 23 years her senior.[4] She was also involved with actor Ryan O'Neal. Her on-and-off relationship with actor Jack Nicholson spanned from 1973 to 1990 and included an incident in which she became a witness for the prosecution at Roman Polanski's 1977 trial regarding the alleged rape of a 13 year old girl in Nicholson's home.[5] Her testimony, which was reported made in exchange for dropping charges of cocaine possession, ref>[2]</ref> in which she had arrived at the residence she had just recently shared with Nicholson, was intended to be used against Polanski to place him in the bedroom with the alleged victim, but once a plea bargain was struck her testimony became obsolete.[6]
^ United States Campaign for Burma. Hollywood: UN Should Act on Burma. United States Campaign for Burma's homepage, 6 September 2007. Received 6 November 2007.
^[1]. PETA Files, 18 February 2009. Retrieved 21 February 2009.