American film director, screenwriter and actor.
John Houston was born in Missouri, Nevada. He was the only child of Rhea Gore and Canadian-born Walter Huston. John Houston's ancestry includes Scottish, Irish-Scottish, English and Welsh ancestry.
In total, John Houston is of Scottish, Irish-Scottish, English and Welsh descent. He has directed 37 feature films, almost all of which he wrote the screenplay himself. He has directed films that are now considered classics: "The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The African Queen, 1951), The Misfits (1961), Fat City (1972), The Man Who Would Be King (1975) and Prizzi's Honour (1985).
Jr. Houston has starred in a number of films. The best known are The Cardinal (1963) and Chinatown (1974).
He has been nominated for an Oscar 15 times as a director, screenwriter or actor. Of those nominations, he has won two - Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay (both for "The Treasures of the Sierra Madre").
Both his father, Walter, and his daughter, Anjelica, have won Oscars.
J. Houston was a heavy smoker and was diagnosed with emphysema in 1978. For the rest of his life, he could breathe for no more than 20 minutes without an oxygen machine. The lung disease complicated into pneumonia, and at the age of 81, J. Houston was diagnosed with pneumonia. Houston died on 28 August 1987 at his rental house in Middletown. J. He is buried in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, next to his mother.