FROM “THE NEW YORKER”
Finding John Huston
“What’s this?” I asked Joanie, who had picked me up at the Puerto
Vallarta airport less than an hour earlier. It was my understanding that
she would deposit me at the home of her employer, John Huston. Instead,
I was standing on a solitary dock surrounded by dense jungle.
Through his agent, Huston had agreed to meet and consider my
fantasized proposition that, for a crewman’s wages, he would immediately
devote a month of his time to star in a small, independent film that I
had been hired to direct. Doing so would require him to travel to the
Gaslamp Quarter of San Diego. This was in 1982, a decade before urban
renewal revitalized that area.
It had been less than a year since I’d moved to
Hollywood from Washington, D.C., lacking a relevant résumé but filled
with youthful energy, tenacity, and the rigid intent to direct feature
films. In my limited experience, I had learned quickly the power that
determination and the conviction of one’s ideas carries. My first lesson
was that confidence matters, with or without basis; he who wavers is
soon forgotten.
Convincing producers I knew far more than I did, my Hollywood career
began with the offer of a job in the editing room, and within a year I
had developed into a contract to write and direct a feature film. I had
picked up a lot in my short time in L.A., and when casting discussions
began I understood the value of placing a known commodity into an
unknown venture. I suggested hiring an iconic Hollywood director to play
the mentor in a family film about pride and consequence, and a quick
turn of events placed me on a small wooden dock in rural Mexico, hoping
to convince John Huston that he should travel to San Diego to star in a
micro-budget production for a first-time director for less compensation
than an electrician would earn on a film set today.
Joanie explained that Huston lived on a Huichol Indian reservation
located on a remote peninsula south of Yalapa. There were no paved roads
leading to his compound, which had no electricity, no gas, and no
running water. He made due with the use of a generator, propane, and
rain tanks. The only access was via the Pacific Ocean. Huston had
requested over short-wave radio—the only communication available, when
it was working—that Joanie drop me at the dock, where a local fisherman
would collect me and bring me to the compound in his twenty-foot
outboard, or panga.
I had stepped off the plane wearing a newly purchased navy blue
Brooks Brothers suit and fresh-out-of-the-box wing tips: acceptable for a
meeting on the Eastern seaboard, but on the Mexican coast a flag of
ignorance. The agent, Paul Kohner, had informed me Huston didn’t like to
leave home and that I had to go to Mexico to see him. Kohner never
mentioned panga travel on the open sea; I was now thinking the suit had been a bad idea.
Carrying my briefcase, I gingerly set one foot onto the boat’s center
bench and stepped off the dock, careful to keep my balance as the craft
adjusted to my weight. The boatman, who obviously spoke no English,
gestured for me to move to the bow. I placed one dress shoe in front of
the other, trying to avoid the swirling current of bloody water and fish
innards in the bottom of the craft. Dregs on the front of the man’s
T-shirt and rags in his pocket implied he had been on the water since
before dawn, with a full day’s fishing behind him. We both waved to
Joanie, who called that she would pick me up in three days.
The boatman tossed the lines ashore and sat down by the outboard. The
fuel tank was a plastic milk container turned upside down with the base
cut off with a serrated knife, leaving jagged edges. He picked up a
flexible, hollow plastic tube, dunked one end into the milk container,
sucked on the other end to get the flow started, inserted the discharge
end into the back of the engine, and cranked it up.
As we headed into the incoming swells, the spray washed across the
bow, adding decorative flecks of salt onto my suit, which, after thirty
seconds on the Sea of Cortez, could not be worn again. I turned to the
boatman, ready to ask if it was possible to skid the swells and avoid
the splash.
He smiled in mock confusion. I was the entertainment on this trip,
and splash was part of the show. I sank into the acceptance that my suit
and shoes would be the price for the memory of this day. After ten
minutes, I was desperately, pathetically trying to protect my briefcase
from the salt water. I was sweating so rapidly that my hair was glued to
my head and my tie had changed color.
Heading south, the boatman detoured close to the beaches to wave at
nude bathers in Yalapa. They waved back, as if acknowledging my display
as an offer of amusement.
After nearly an hour, we rounded a bend and approached a peninsula,
where I could see a rectangular compound on a cliff-top mesa with a set
of stairs leading up from the beach. At the top of the steps, wearing a
white linen day suit and standing like the sentry to Oz, was John
Huston.
The craft slowed and surfed in until we bobbed in shallow water.
The
boatman angled parallel to the shore, handed me my bag, and shouted over
the engine, “O.K.!”
“Wait a minute. Isn’t there a dock?” I stood at the bow of the boat,
holding my briefcase and my overnight bag, trying to maintain my balance
as the boat oscillated with the waves.
“You jump,” he replied. I looked down. We were still in two or three
feet of swells and he was telling me to jump in and wade ashore in my
suit and wing tips, lifting my bags over the breaking waves.
“Now. You jump!” He yelled this time, worried that his boat would
wash closer and that his prop might touch bottom. I looked up at Huston,
hands on his hips, one leg propped on a rock. Even from a distance, I
sensed a gleeful smile.
Holding my briefcase in one hand and my bag in the other, I jumped
into the ocean and trudged ashore, trying to stay cheerful while
thinking about how to redeem myself. As I left the water, my trousers
clung to my legs and my shoes filled with sand. They squeaked as I
walked across the beach to the steps.
Huston had not moved.
I climbed the steps, holding the bags away from my body. At the top,
Huston watched without laughing. Standing before him, I tried to smile. I
was wet, dirty, pouring sweat, embarrassed, and standing before one the
icons of my chosen profession, in which I had no formal training,
education, or experience. It was the moment, but hardly the
circumstances, that I had anticipated.
“I hope all your guests aren’t as embarrassed as I am,” I stammered, not even sure what I meant.
Huston smiled as only he could, with a raised brow, twinkling eyes,
and a curved mouth with lips that never parted. He pointed over my
shoulder and spoke in a gravelly baritone that could belong to no one
else. “Your quarters are behind you, closest to the water. I’m over
here. Why don’t you get cleaned up, come on over, and we’ll talk.” He
smiled again and went silent. I did as I was told.
After showering and changing, I knocked on the screen door and
Huston’s Filipino cook Archie let me in. After introductions, Huston
turned to me and smiled again, saying, “Archie’s the smartest man I ever
met. Pretty good cook, too, but I keep him here so we can talk. Want a
drink?”
When Archie returned with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, we raised our glasses and the conversation began at 2 P.M.
We remained in our chairs until after midnight. I met Maricela, who had
once been his housekeeper and was now his full-time attendant,
companion, and inspiration, and their adopted Huichol daughter,
Graciela. Archie brought us food and another bottle. We continued
talking long after it was gone.
I was shocked by the fluidity of this dance. He wasn’t that
interested in my film experience, but he wanted to know who I was. We
exchanged views about childhoods, parents, marriages, careers, loves,
losses, prides, and disappointments. Huston talked about his brief
avocations as a boxer, a painter, and a journalist. He told me writing
was his first love, and that he had just finished his autobiography.
He talked about the world he had seen, why he loved certain
continents so much more than others, and how he had fallen in love with
Mexico when he made “Night of the Iguana,” in Puerto Vallarta.
After
living in Hollywood and then in Ireland, he decided that he wanted to
spend his remaining years in the tropics. When this land was made
available to him by the Indians, he took a long-term lease on it and
designed the compound himself. He was a frustrated architect and would
have loved to have worked that field, but after visiting a house that
Huston had designed Frank Lloyd Wright comically disparaged Huston’s
work and discouraged him from continuing. He said that Wright redeemed
himself by requesting on his deathbed that if a film was made about the
life of Frank Lloyd Wright, he wanted John Huston to direct it.
Huston liked that I hadn’t gone to film school and that I had come to
Hollywood only recently, after several unrelated professions. He
considered it an attribute in the developing Hollywood climate favoring
style over narrative. I finally asked if he had any questions about the
film I planned to make.
He raised his brow and solemnly stared, the most serious moment of
the day. “I’d have to read the script first. But you can tell me this.
You haven’t directed a movie yet. It can be difficult. You’ve got
actors, producers, money people, budget, crew … it’s a considerable job.
What do you think is the most important part of all that?”
My response didn’t require a thought: “Tell the story.”
That invoked the biggest smile of the evening—and I was secure that it wasn’t at my expense.
The next morning, I was sitting on my terrace working on the script
when Graciela ran up with an important announcement. “John says you
should come for a swim,” she declared, speaking like a master of
ceremonies.
“Thank you, Graciela, but I’m just finishing something. I’ll be along in fifteen minutes, all right?”
She stood defiant, intent on executing her orders even though she was
only five years old. “John says you should come now,” she said,
unblinkingly referring to her adoptive father by his first name.
I followed Graciela to the beach where Huston stood at the base of the stairs. “I trust you slept well?”
I assured him I had, and he gestured. “Have a seat and let’s talk.”
Having learned from Graciela, I did as instructed.
“I read the script this morning,” he began. “It’s a good script.
Frankly, I don’t see how you can lose.” He winked through his creases.
“Thank you, sir.” I was waiting for the rest.
“Now let’s go for a swim.” He started to get up.
“Wait a minute,” I interjected. “Does that mean you’ll do it?”
“Sure I’ll do it. I like it.” This time he got up and grabbed his towel.
“Did Paul tell you how much we’re paying?”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “What the hell. I like it. Now let’s go for
a swim.” With that, he walked to the water’s edge, dropped his towel,
put on a snorkel mask, waved for me to join him, and edged into the
Pacific.
I remained on the steps for a minute, relishing a new understanding
of life. I had done nothing to deserve this, beyond being who I was and
doing what I was capable of, and it was the sum of my life’s moments
that had brought me here.
Due to an airline strike, I stayed at the compound for three weeks.
Huston and I shared many meals and thoughts in that time. He sponsored
me to join his agency and his union. I finally talked to him about
directing and, more important, he talked back. We made the film, which,
despite his prognosis, was not successful. He went on to direct “Under
the Volcano,” “Prizzi’s Honor,” and his final masterwork, “The Dead.” He
was supportive of me throughout and was a considerate friend and
mentor.
Afterward, I was given the opportunity to direct a second film. I
learned of Huston’s death one August afternoon, while shooting on
location in the California redwoods. I was trying to convince an actor,
who had walked off a set after an argument over which direction he
should turn while delivering a line, that the entire cast and crew was
waiting on him; we had this location for only the day, we were losing
valuable time while he was sipping beer in a bar, and if the film
suffered because it was missing important scenes we would all stand to
lose, from the top to the bottom. The actor shook his head and began to
philosophize while I stole glances at my watch.
While listening to him complain about the producers, the funding, his
costars, and his lodgings (which he had partially destroyed in a
tantrum the previous day), I was glancing over the actor’s head at John
Huston’s image on the television screen behind the bar, the dates of his
birth and death superimposed underneath his whimsical face.
Staring at Huston’s face, I could hear his voice clearly: “Directing a
movie is a considerable job. What do you think is the most important
part?”
There are moments seemingly designed to make us realize the true
weight of personality, genetics, and trial. Sitting on a wooden step,
watching a seventy-six-year-old man by the name of John Huston wearing
an immodest tank suit float on the gentle Pacific was one of those rare
times when I felt life realized. A moment when synchronicity of effort
and fate had rewarded me beyond my highest expectations.
Above, left to right: Terrell Tannen, John Huston, and Paul Kohner on
the set of “A Minor Miracle,” in 1982. Photograph by Pamela Seaman.
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