HOIST A JIGGER TO JOHN HUSTON
Another birthday (already past) this week. Legendary director, writer, painter, anecdotalist, "man's man" and smoker John Huston was born on August 5, 1906, and passed from this world on August 28, 1987. I met John Huston one weekend in 1981, when I was sixteen. "Annie" (you should forgive the expression) was about to go into general release and the Directors Guild threw a "Weekend with John Huston" party aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California. There were screenings of his films (all on 16mm) and q&a's with Huston himself. He wore a white jumpsuit, a white beard, and was so magnetic, charismatic and dangerous that--to my adolescent eye--most of the women on board (at least the ones that I was checking out) had eyes only for the seventy-five year old adventurer-director. He told stories of his filmmaking past--but never in a self-aggrandizing way. Indeed, he was a curious mixture of self-love and lack of self-esteem. He was happy givin...