Anjelica Huston
Anjelica Huston was born on July 9, 1951 in Santa Monica, CA. Her father was the Oscar-winning director-actor John Huston and her grandfather was the Oscar-winning actor Walter Huston. Her first name is sometimes spelled "Angelica".
Her roles in Western movies included such films as "Buffalo Girls" (TV, 1995), "The Cowboy and the Ballerina" (TV, 1984), and as Gus's love interest, "Clara Allen," in the smash hit TV movie/miniseries, "Lonesome Dove" (1989).
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Huston, John
(Deceased)John Huston, actor and director, was born on August 5, 1906 in Nevada, MO. His father was the famous stage actor, Walter Huston. No wonder, then, that young John Huston wound up in vaudeville. Then he progressed to acting in plays on Broadway in New York City.
Hollywood soon beckoned, and he made his first film in 1929. Though he was acting and writing scripts, he soon got a reputation for being cantakerous and for hitting the bottle a little too much. That came to a head when his driving drunk led to the death of a woman. He became depression and went to Europe to deal with his demons.
When he returned to Hollywood in 1938, John Huston began to write more scripts for movies. Humprey Bogart appeared in eight of his screenplays, including "The Maltese Falcon," "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," "Key Largo," and "The African Queen." And with "The Maltese Falcon," Huston assumed the director's chair.
He finally returned to acting and cast himself in movies he was directing. He was twice nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
In 1983 The Director's Guild bestoyed on him the D.W. Griffith Award. And the American Film Institute presented him with a Lifetime Achievement award.
John Huston died on August 28, 1987 and is buried in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery (Section 8, lot 6, west side of lake) in Hollywood, CA.
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Walter Huston
(Deceased)Walter Huston was born as Walter Hughston in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 1905 he was already a success in vaudeville. He went from there to Broadway in New York City.
However, jobs were few and not that well paying. So he used his training as an engineer to get a regular job to support his wife (Rhea Gore) and his new baby son, John Huston. They moved to Nevada, MO., and then to St. Louis, MO.
Acting was in Walter Huston's blood, though, and he returned to the vaudeville stage in 1909. He and Gore divorced in 1913. And he married two more times before he was through.
By 1924 he was back starring in Broadway plays. And in 1929 he moved West to Hollywood's greener pastures.
Walter Huston made 62 films from 1929 to 1950. His Western films included "Duel in the Sun" (1946), "The Outlaw" (1943), "Law and Order" (1932), "The Virginian" (1929), and the film for which he received an Oscar for "Best Supporting Actor"---"The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948), with Humprey Bogart and Tim Holt. His son, John Huston, directed the film.
Walter Huston died on April 7, 1950. His ashes went unclaimed for more than twenty years, until his son-- actor and director John Huston --tracked them down in a New York funeral home and buried them at Walter Ranch in Porterville, CA. In 1973, after Huston's second wife, Nan, died, John had Walter's ashes buried next to her in Belmont Memorial Park Cemetery (Section 8, Plot 702, Grave 2) in Fresno, CA.
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Betty Hutton
(Deceased)Betty Hutton was born as Elizabeth June Thornburg. That was on February 26, 1921, in Battle Creek, Michigan. After her father abandoned the family in 1923, her mother moved them to Detroit. There she opened a small bar, a strange choice given the country was in the era of Prohibition.
The fact is that Mrs. Thornburg was an alcoholic. But she did know talent when she saw it and, as it turns out, her daughter Betty could sing like a nightengale. So she pushed Betty out the door to sing for money wherever she could. Betty was nine years old.
By the time she hit the ripe age of 13, she was singing with local bands. Athe age of 15 she left Detroit to try to sing as a professional in New York City. That didn't last long and she had to return to Detroit, where she once again sang with local bands.
Still, the beautiful blond with the golden voice didn't give up on her dream of making it in New York City. Sure enough, in 1940 at the age of 19, she was singing on Broadway. And in 1941, Hollywood came calling and at age 21 made her first movie, "The Fleet's In (Paramount, 1942).
Her only Western entertainment credits came for starring in the movie, "Annie Get Your Gun" in 1950, starring in a TV special, "Satins and Spurs" in 1954, and for a guest appearance in 1965 on the TV show, "Gunsmoke".
She was extremely sensitive to criticism. She quit show biz "for good," several times. She turned down the part of Ado Annie in that new play, "Oklahoma!" in 1954. Her career as over by 1959.
Some of that may be attributed to the fact that, somewhere along the line, she had become addicted to alcohol (like her mother) and sleeping pills. She had even tried, at least once, to take her own life. In 1967 Hutton suffered a double blow as her mother died and Betty was forced to declare bankruptcy. Some estimates are that she squandered nearly $10 million dollars.In the 1970's , had been through rehab and was putting her life back together. She was quietly working as a housekeeper and cook in the rectory of a Catholic church in Portsmouth, R.I.
Hutton always regretted having dropped out of school in the 9th grade. So in the Father Peter Maguire encouraged her to go back to school. She was in her 50's. But she did so and graduated from Salve Regina University and taught theater courses there for a time.
Betty Hutton married four times and had three children in the process. She spent her last years quietly and out of the public eye in Palm Springs, Calif. She died on March 11, 2007, at the age of 86. She had colon cancer. She is buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Cathedral City, Calif.
Paul Andrew Hutton
Paul Andrew Hutton was born in Frankfurt, Germany on Oct. 23, 1949 to German parents. After being orphaned, he was adopted by American parents and raised on military bases in England, Taiwan, and in the United States. He holds B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Indiana University.
In 1977 Hutton was appointed associate editor of the Western Historical Quarterly and remained in that position until 1984, when he moved to New Mexico and became a professor of history at the University of New Mexico.
He is the editor of the New Mexico Historical Review, and is the author of Phil Sheridan and his Army (University of Nebraska Press, 1985), for which the WWA in 1986 awarded him a Spur for "Best Western Nonfiction Book in 1985". That book also won the Ray Allen Billington Prize, as well as the $10,000 Evans Biography Award.Paul Andrew Hutton edited Ten Days on the Plains, by Henry Davies (Southern Methodist University Press, 1985). And he is the author of Soldiers West: Biographies from the Military Frontier (University of Nebraska, 1986). His articles have appeared in Arizona and the West, SMU Mustang, and other magazines.
Martha Hyer
Martha Hyer , actress, was born in Fort Worth, Texas on Aug. 10, 1924.Martha Hyer, originally a lovely brunette, majored in speech and drama Northwestern University in Illinois, but was only there from 1943 to 1944. In the summer of 1944 she made a move to Hollywood and found work at the famous Pasadena Playhouse. That exposure soon resulted in a contract with RKO movie studio, then owned by none-other than Howard Hughes.
She was certainly a pretty young thing. And she, in fact, did some pin-up modeling , with a feature of her in The Leatherneck magazine for our Marines in June, 1946. Other modeling work, as well as movie roles, followed.
Martha Hyer married movie directory Ray Stahl in 1951, and they divorced in 1954. It was also that year that she became a stunning blonde.
She then married the biggest fish in the Hollywood scene: movie mogul Hal Wallis. He was 25 years old than Martha (67 versus 42), but the marriage stuck until his death at age 87. Her Western films included "Showdown at Abilene" (1955) with Jock Mahoney, "Sons of Katie Elder" (1965; produced by her husband, Hal Wallis) with John Wayne, and "Night of the Grizzlys" (1966) with Clint Walker.
Martha Hyer also made guest appearances in such TV Western series as "The Long Ranger," "Branded," "Zane Grey Theater," "The Deputy," "The Adventures of Wild Bill Hockok," "The Virginian," and "Rawhide".
She received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her role in "Some Came Running " (1958). in '58.
Martha Hyer was not just a pretty face. She wrote the screenplay for "Rooster Cogburn" (John Wayne, 1975), that featured the aging but magical duo of John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn.
She admittedly like to spend money. Lots of it. And even though her husband was one of the wealthiest men in Hollywood, she tried to keep her spending habits secret from him. So, in time, she lied to him more and more. And she got in deep trouble with loan sharks.
Under intense stress, because of her unethical lifestyle, she had a religious experience that changed her life. She went to her husband and told him the whole sordid truth. Hal Wallis not only forgave her, but got his high-powered and expensive lawyers to work with the FBI find a solution to the situation.
In 1990 Martha Hyer wrote the story of her life, titled Finding My Way: A Hollywood Memoir. She moved from southern California to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
This listing is far from complete and may contain errors.
Therefore, all Western entertainers and/or their agents
are requested to submit recommended changes by
contacting Stan Paregien through his e-mail address.
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him,
and he delivers them.
--- Bible: Psalm 34:7
© 2007 by Stan Paregien, Sr.