John Huston (1906-1987) was born in Nevada, Missouri, the son of actor Walter Huston and journalist Reah Gore Huston. As a teen he moved with his mother to Los Angeles, where he attended Lincoln High School. He dropped out to pursue boxing, then painting, studying the latter with Stanton MacDonald-Wright at the Art Students League of Los Angeles. Huston pursued acting in New York with the Provincetown Players in 1924. He started writing short stories and worked as a reporter for a New York newspaper. Huston came to Hollywood as a writer in the early 1930s, under contract first at Samuel Goldwyn, then at Universal.

From 1932 to 1937 he drifted around London, Paris, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Finding his niche as a writer at Warner Bros., Huston scripted JEZEBEL (1938) and HIGH SIERRA (1941), among other films. His directorial debut was THE MALTESE FALCON (1941), for which he also wrote the screenplay. His directing career was interrupted by service in the Army Signal Corps, where he directed three documentaries. Back at Warner Bros., Huston directed THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948) and KEY LARGO (1948). During the HUAC investigation of Communism in Hollywood in the late 1940s, Huston was a member of the Committee for the First Amendment. Eventually disenfranchised, he moved to Ireland in 1952 and became an Irish citizen in 1964, taking up residence in a mansion built on the ruins of a monastery.

Huston went on to direct such pictures as THE ASPHALT JUNGLE (1950), MOULIN ROUGE (1952), MOBY DICK (1956), THE MISFITS (1961), FREUD (1962), THE BIBLE (1966), THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA (1964), WISE BLOOD (1979), UNDER THE VOLCANO (1984), and PRIZZI'S HONOR (1985). His last film was THE DEAD (1987). As an actor Huston has appeared in THE CARDINAL (1963), CHINATOWN (1974), WISE BLOOD, and THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, among other films. Huston's children, Anjelica, Danny, and Tony, have all found work in acting and directing. John Huston received Academy Awards for writing and directing THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE. His other dozen nominations span five decades and three categories (writing, directing, and acting).