Review of "Watch Me: A Memoir" by Anjelica Huston

Anjelica Huston

Anjelica Huston must have kept a detailed diary over the years because the stories she tells are wonderfully comprehensive and evocative, including particulars about friends, relatives, activities, clothes, food, furnishings, flora, fauna, her passions, her emotions, her movies, her television shows, etc. 

Huston mentions myriad people she's met during her life - at parties, events, dinners, private homes, movie sets, television sets, film festivals award shows, hotels, ski resorts, and so on. Huston's friends and acquaintances include actors, actresses, writers, directors, managers, hairdressers, make-up artists, fashion editors, fashion stylists, aristocrats, musicians, artists, photographers.....all the glitterati.

For example, in 1979, when Huston attended a party that talent agent Sue Mengers threw for Princess Margaret, the attendees included Prince Rupert Loewenstein, Governor Jerry Brown, Linda Ronstadt, Michael Caine, Farrah Fawcett, Ryan O'Neal, Barbra Streisand, Jon Peters, Robin Williams, Gore Vidal, Sean Connery, Ken Tynan, Nick Nolte, Danny Kaye, David Geffen Joni Mitchell, Swiftly Lazar, Ali Macgraw, Barry Manilow, and more. 

Princess Margaret with the rich and famous 

Huston also had a varied and successful career, engaged in several passionate love affairs, and married a famous sculptor.....all of which she dishes about in her books.

This is the second installment of Huston's autobiography, following ' Story Lately Told: Coming of Age in Ireland, London, and New York' - which culminates when eighteen-year-old Anjelica started a relationship with Bob Richardson. 

Photographer Bob Richardson

Huston describes Richardson as "a bold and  provocative fashion photographer who was 24 years older than I."  Richardson was also mentally ill and almost drove Huston to suicide. Anjelica left Richardson in 1973, after four years, and moved from their home in New York to Los Angeles.....where her life changed dramatically. 

In New York, Huston - a striking brunette almost 6 feet tall - was a fashion model for the best photographers and designers in the world. 

Anjelica Huston was a fashion model

In California, however, tan blonde girls were in vogue, so Huston traveled to New York and Europe for modeling work.....and eventually established an acting career.   

Huston started seeing Jack Nicholson, one of the great loves of her life, soon after she arrived in Los Angeles. Huston talks about living with the actor; traveling with him; visiting Jack on movie sets; joining him at L.A. Laker games; attending the Oscars with him; and much more. 

Anjelica Huston and Jack Nicholson

Huston notes, "Jack was prompt at sending flowers, and chocolates on Valentine's Day. He liked to give beautiful presents. He often thrilled me with generous gifts of jewels and furs. We thought furs were great in those days." She goes on to say, "Jack was not fazed by much. He liked his creature comforts and had a real zest for life. He liked to travel, especially to Europe. He loved to collect people. Paternally, he would call us "my people." At the time the generality of it bugged me; I wanted to be special, and I felt a loss of identity."

Jack Nicholson had a zest for life

In fact no one woman was completely special to Jack and he indulged in serial infidelity. Huston writes, "There was evidence after Spain [where he filmed on location] that Jack had slept with a script supervisor. Whenever I was suspicious and I'd start looking around for evidence  - in his wallet, his bureau, his bedside drawer - there was never a time I did not find some telltale item some scrap of inflammatory confirmation, so to a certain point I stopped snooping, but I also stopped trusting him." 

Huston wasn't always faithful herself. When Jack was away in the mid-1970s, Huston met Ryan O'Neal at a party, went home with him and "kissed him for six hours straight on his dining room table." Huston broke it off with Nicholson and began an affair with the charismatic O'Neal. Huston recalls O'Neal as being "a golden specimen, always in motion, an Apollo. He was an athlete, a runner, a boxer, and a bully. He was a gorgeous California native." 

Ryan O'Neal was an Apollo

Angelica Huston and Ryan O'Neal

Unfortunately, O'Neal was also a violent man. Anjelica speaks of an incident when Ryan grabbed her by the hair and hit her on the forehead with the top of his skull. Huston recalls, "He was batting me about the head with open hands. I realized I had no one to turn to. I had given up my friends when I was with Ryan; they were too close to Jack, and I didn't want them to know what was going on." Soon afterwards Huston ended her affair with Ryan and returned to Jack. 

Huston had fabulous clothes, and describes many of her outfits in detail. For instance, when Huston accompanied Nicholson to the Academy Awards in 1976, Richard Tyler made her a "white suit, very Marlene Dietrich, with satin lapels and a floor-length pencil-thin skirt with a big box pleat." That year Nicholson's movie "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" won for Best Picture, and he won for Best Actor.

Anjelica Huston and Jack Nicholson at the Oscars for 'One Few Over the Cuckoo's Nest'

Huston's father was the famous actor and director John Huston, whom she adored. 

Actor and director John Huston

Anjelica Huston with her father John Huston 

Because of John's busy schedule, Anjelica rarely saw him when she was a child. Thus she cherished reminders of him, like his cigar smoke.  She notes, "For my father, the scent I most fondly remember is what eventually killed him, his cigar smoke. I could always tell where he was in any hotel just by following the smell of Monte Cristo through the hallway like a bloodhound." 

Eventually, John's smoking gave him emphysema, which made it hard for him to get oxygen. Over the years, Anjelica spent many days in the hospital with her father, "waiting, waiting for tests, waiting for the results from the tests, the good news, the bad news." She laments, "It was terrible to see him so sick. The attack on his system by the disease was relentless. He was wracked with coughing, struggling for breath, incapable of sleeping. For the last decade of his life, he was in and out of hospitals with respiratory failure. He was in hell with this disease. He became very fragile."

John Huston became ill with emphysema

John also had additional health problems, including skin cancer, elbow repair surgery, heart-valve replacement surgery, surgery to reduce a hernia in his groin, and an abdominal aortic aneurysm. After every health crisis, John fought to resume his life and go back to making movies. In 1987 John succumbed to his lung disease and died at the age of 81.

By then Anjelica had become a successful actress. Huston's first movie, "A Walk With Love and Death" (1969), directed by her father, was a flop and made her wary of pursuing a Hollywood career. By the mid-1970s, however, Huston was dipping her toe into acting again, and eventually took lessons from Peggy Feury. 

Actress and acting teacher Peggy Feury

Huston writes a great deal about being in films, including acting classes, agents, movie roles, directors, fellow performers, prosthetics, lighting, wardrobe, etc. Anjelica worked with some of the best directors in the world, including Wes Anderson, Bob Rafelson, Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, and Stephen Frears. She observes, "I have worked on more than seventy movies and television shows, but I always feel that going back to work is like the first time. It's new and scary and I wonder if I can do it."

Director Wes Anderson

Director Bob Rafelson

Director Woody Allen

Director Francis Ford Coppola

Director Stephen Frears

Arguably, some of  Huston's best movies were Prizzi's Honor (1985), The Witches (1990), The Grifters (1990), The Addams Family (1991), and the Royal Tenenbaums (2001). Huston won a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for Prizzi's Honor, which was directed by John Huston and co-starred Jack Nicholson. 

Anjelica Huston won an Oscar for 'Prizzi's Honor'

Anjelica Huston and Jack Nicholson in 'Prizzi's Honor'

Anjelica Huston in 'The Witches'

Anjelica Huston and John Cusack in 'The Grifters'

Anjelica Huston and Raul Julia in 'The Addams Family'

 

Anjelica Huston with the cast of 'The Royal Tenebaums'

Huston was insecure about her talent and appreciated a wonderful accolade she received from Marlon Brando. The famous star called her to say he loved her performance in Prizzi's Honor. "You are a queen", Brando said, "Remember that." 

Marlon Brando

Afterwards, she observes, "Whenever I felt down or underappreciated in my work, I tried to remember [Brando's] words."

Huston had an on-off relationship with Nicholson for about a decade and a half, until he got another woman pregnant. When Huston was in rehearsals for The Grifters, Jack invited her to dinner and, over dessert, proudly announced, "I have something to tell you. Someone is gonna have a baby." The future mom was Rebecca Broussard, a sexy blond who'd played a secretary in one of Jack's films. 

Jack Nicholson and Rebecca Broussard

Jack affirmed he would stand by Rebecca because he was the father of the child, but wanted to carry on with Anjelica. Huston refused and recalls, "I wept, and I felt the floor dropping out from under me, and finally, the hopelessness of a relationship that's done, flopped, croaked, and over." Huston was especially hurt because Rebecca Broussard had become pregnant when she had tried and couldn't. Anjelica writes, "The sense of betrayal was overwhelming; I felt abandoned and dejected and humiliated. I was not yet forty, but in magazine articles, I was described as the older woman." 

On a more uplifting note, around that time Bernardo Bertolucci, who was president of the Cannes jury in 1990, invited Huston to be a member. She says, "I immediately set about finding a wardrobe that would sustain me for fourteen days and nights in the glamorous south of France. Evening gowns were required for each night at the screenings at the Grand Palais." She continues, "I had been embarrassed about tipping the scales with my four overstuffed suitcases at Air France but when Elizabeth Taylor's luggage sailed by with her sitting in the front of a flatbed minivan I estimated some fourteen pieces of Louis Vuitton in all." 😊

Anjelica Huston on the jury of the Cannes Film Festival (1990)

Elizabeth Taylor at the Cannes Film Festival

That same year, Huston met her future husband, the famous sculptor Robert Graham - who was Mexican but took his name from his Scottish grandfather.

Sculptor Robert Graham

 She notes, "Tall and handsome, Bob had a steel-and-silver mane of thick shoulder length hair that he wore either in a Japanese sumo twist at the nape of his neck or in a ponytail, and a small goatee. He moved with ease and grace."  Huston goes on, "He loved jazz. He was elegant and wise and devil-may-care. He smelled of mint soap and clay and fresh cigar ash. He liked to wear crisp cotton trousers, a starched white shirt, and black Nikes. He cooked me perfect breakfasts and took me salsa dancing. " 

Anjelica Huston and Robert Graham

Anjelica talks a lot about food, and describes some of her delicious meals - such as lunches at Osteria San Lorenzo in London. She would order mozzarella Pomodoro followed by fish, or meat, or pasta, and dessert. The food would be washed down with "a fine Barolo, a possible Chianti Classico,  and a little grappa or Sambuca to polish it off....with just enough espresso to get home."

Mozzarella Pomodoro

Huston and Graham got married in 1992 at a lavish ceremony in California. 

Anjelica Huston and Robert Graham wed in 1992

For the blowout wedding party on the evening of the nuptials, Huston sported a beehive hairdo decorated with red roses and gardenias and wore a "Richard Tyler white silk taffeta dress with a ruffled Spanish dancing skirt tight to the knees, a blood-red sash, and a little bolero hand embroidered with seed pearls in the shape of a winged heart." 

After they wed, Graham built his and Huston's dream house in Venice, California.

Venice, California home of Anjelica Huston and Robert Graham

The couple traveled extensively, and among other places, visited Anjelica's childhood home in Ireland. Huston admits to having an affair with a horse handler when she was on a movie set in France - where Graham instinctively showed up for a visit - but you'll have to read the book for that bit of gossip. 

Huston knew she wanted to direct films some day and got the chance in 1995 when was offered the opportunity to direct 'Bastard Out of Carolina' about  a young girl who's raped by her stepfather with her mother's consent. 

Anjelica Huston directed 'Bastard Out of Carolina'

The movie was very controversial for the time but Anjelica won an Emmy for Outstanding Directing and went on to direct and star in the movie Agnes Browne (1999). 

Meanwhile, Graham was working on his 'Great Bronze Doors' for the Cathedral of Our Lady of Los Angeles, which took more than four years to complete. 

Robert Graham made the 'Great Bronze Doors' for the Cathedral of Our Lady of Los Angeles

Every day Bob's chauffeur drove him to an engineering company in San Dimas that was contracted to take on the function of the doors. At this time Graham started to show symptoms of the disease that would ultimately kill him. Huston observes, "Making the trips back and forth to San Dimas, Bob spent almost half his waking time on the road. He confided that his joints were aching and his feet were getting numb from the physical inactivity."

In time, it became obvious that Graham was not well and he was finally diagnosed with Wegener's granulomatosis, a rare illness that affects many of the body's organs and systems. Towards the end of his life, Bob's kidneys failed, and he was treated with Cytoxan and regular dialysis. Then he had a stroke, which was very debilitating. 

Huston describes her husband's demise in detail. He was hospitalized, took  masses of steroids, and had physical therapy. When Graham was finally allowed to go home, he was cared for by Anjelica and a private nurse. Sadly, the sculptor continued to decline and died. Huston recalls, "He turned his cheek on the pillow and seemed to relax a little. Then I watched his spirit go." It was clear that Bob was just a shell, and a few days later - when his loved ones had said goodbye - he was detached from his ventilator. Graham passed in 2008 at the age of 70. 

Anjelica Huston at her husband's funeral

Huston experienced additional tragedies since many of her close friends died of AIDS, which was the scourge of that era.

At the end of the book Huston talks about selling her Venice house and preparing to move into a new home. Anjelica visited a medium, who told her that her Dad "is happy in the afterlife because he likes alcohol and you can have a drink in heaven." The medium also reported that Bob is coming with her to the new house. So that's good to know.

Anjelica Huston at home

The last part of the book feels a bit rushed - like Huston was anxious to finish - but overall this is a good story, recommended to fans of celebrity memoirs.

Rating: 4 stars