After playing a dying Hollywood agent on a futile search for sympathy in Ivansxtc (2000), director-turned-actor Danny Huston felt that he had finally emerged from the confines of his family name. His father, legendary director John Huston, had cast a giant shadow over his sons short career. Grandfather Walter Hustonstar from the 30s & 40s and an Oscar winnerand half-sister Anjelicaalso a winner of Oscar goldonly added to the stress of doing right by the Huston name. But instead of succumbing to the pressure, Huston embraced his familys legacyeven to the point of shamelessly using the name to open doorsand forged his own path through Hollywood.
Huston was born in Rome, Italy in 1962 and raised by his mother, actress Zoe Sallis, whose affair with his father never became a marriage. He later joined the elder Huston in Ireland and lived with the old man in homes scattered about the United States and Mexico. At seven years-old, Huston began making his own movies with a Super-8 camera and his dadever the bestower of advicequizzed the boy about his technique and told him how to use his natural eye to cut. Later in life, Huston became disaffected with the entertainment industryperhaps because of all the rubbish his father dealt with or his mothers reprimand to a boyhood crush on Ava Gardnerand instead used his talent in painting and drawing to enter the stuffy, white wine sipping world of Art.
Soon Huston realized that the art world was no different than film, so he caved to long-repressed desires and became a director. His first project was directing the main titles sequence in his fathers period drama, Under the Volcano. He then helmed the made-for-TV fantasy comedy, Mr. Corbetts Ghost (1986), about a soul collector who comes to claim his debt from a young man. With help from his father, Huston got Lauren Becall to appear in his feature film debut, Mr. North (1988), a modern-day adaptation of Thornton Wilders last novel, starring Anthony Edwards as a man whose new powers help heal an ailing Rhode Island town. John Huston was set to appear in a leading role, but fell prey to his illness and died a month after principle photography began. Veteran actor Robert Mitchum stepped in to fill the void.
For as long as he could remember, his father had been dying of emphysemathe old man was in and out of hospitals; later in life, he was unable to go anywhere without an oxygen tank. Though his first impression of his dad was as the white-haired Noah from The Bible (1966), he later grew to see that he was indeed a very sick man; close to the end, his father revealed a fear-laden tenderness that undermined the image of the rough-and-tumble maverick. Lucky for both, the two grew close in his fathers waning years. Meanwhile, Huston continued to work, directing his next film, Becoming Colette (1991), a foreign-funded biopic about the sexual and intellectual awakening of French novelist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette.
After directing The Maddening (1996)a psychological thriller with Burt Reynolds and Angie Dickinson as a manipulative married coupleHuston stepped away from the directors chair to focus on actinga career shift that provided him with better critical notices. He made his first appearance in a small role as a bartender in Leaving Las Vegas (1995), then progressed to more prominent parts in smaller or lesser-known films: Bernard Roses adaptation of Tolstoys Anna Karenina (1997), Daphna Kastners sophomore effort Spanish Fly (1999) and Mike Figgis experimental Timecode (2000). After his lead performance in Ivansxtc, he returned to supporting roles, playing a sinister hotel manager in Hotel (2001), an unscrupulous young business man in Eden (2001) and Naomi Watts ill-fated husband in 21 Grams (2003).
In Silver City (2005), writer-directed John Sayles political satire and murder mystery, Huston played a former journalist turned rumpled private investigator who tries to find the link between a dead body and the family enemies of a gubernatorial hopeful (Chris Cooper). Huston then appeared as a wealthy businessman who prods a grieving woman (Nicole Kidman) into marrying him in Birth (2004), Jonathan Glazers romantic thriller about a ten year-old boy who claims to be Kidmans reincarnated husband. Then in Martin Scorseses epic biography, The Aviator (2004), Huston had a small role as Jack Frye, a pilot and president of TWA airlines who convinces legendary billionaire Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio) to take over the ailing airline. Huston next gave his most intriguing and measured performance to date in Fernando Meirelles; brilliant film The Constant Gardener (2005), playing the conservative colleague and friend of a British diplomat (Ralph Fiennes) whose wife (Rachel Wiesz) is mysteriously murdered after discovering massive corruption between Kenyas government and the pharmaceutical industry, who has personal and professional connections to the secrets behind her killing.
Copyright © Baseline 2009.