Walter Huston: Academy Award-Winning Actor and Family Patriarch
Walter Huston (April 6, 1883 or 1884 – April 7, 1950) was a Canadian and American actor and singer. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, becoming the first father to win an Oscar at the same ceremony as his son, director John Huston.
Early Life and Education
Huston was born in Toronto, Ontario, and attended Winchester Street Public School. His parents were Elizabeth McGibbon and Robert Moore Huston, a farmer who founded a construction company. Of Scottish and Irish descent, Huston had a brother and two sisters, including Margaret Carrington, a theatrical voice coach. Before his birth, the family had moved from Melville, just south of Orangeville, Ontario.
As a young man, Huston worked in construction while attending the Shaw School of Acting in his spare time. He made his stage debut in 1902, touring in In Convict Stripes and appearing with Richard Mansfield in Julius Caesar. In 1904, he married Rhea Gore, a sports editor, and left acting to manage electric power stations in Nevada, Missouri, a position he held until 1909. Their son John was born on August 5, 1906.
Career and Achievements
Huston’s marriage to Rhea Gore dissolved, and in 1909 he returned to performing, appearing with actress Bayonne Whipple (born Mina Rose) in vaudeville. After divorcing Rhea in 1913, he married Mina Rose in December 1914. The couple worked in vaudeville through the 1920s while their son John attended boarding school. Huston and Mina Rose divorced in 1931 after his career shifted to solo work, and he married Ninetta Sunderland that same year; they remained married until his death.
Huston began his Broadway career on January 22, 1924, in Mr. Pitt, followed by roles in Desire Under the Elms, Kongo, The Barker, and Elmer the Great. With the advent of sound film, he transitioned to Hollywood, initially playing the villain Trampas in The Virginian (1929) opposite Gary Cooper. Early sound roles included Abraham Lincoln (1930), Rain (1932), and Gabriel Over the White House (1933).
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Huston became one of America’s most prominent actors. He starred as Sam Dodsworth in both the 1934 Broadway production and the 1936 film adaptation of Sinclair Lewis’s novel, winning the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor and receiving an Oscar nomination. He performed “September Song” in the original 1938 Broadway production of Knickerbocker Holiday; his recording appears repeatedly in September Affair (1950).
Huston made an uncredited appearance in John Huston’s 1941 film noir The Maltese Falcon, playing a ship’s captain. He contributed to World War II propaganda efforts, appearing uncredited in Safeguarding Military Information (1942) and narrating Frank Capra’s Why We Fight series. Other wartime films included The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), and Mission to Moscow (1943), in which he portrayed United States Ambassador Joseph E. Davies.
Notable Events and Milestones
In 1948, Huston portrayed Howard in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, directed by his son John. Based on B. Traven’s novel, the film tells of three gold prospectors in 1920s post-revolution Mexico. Both father and son won Academy Awards for the film—Walter for Best Supporting Actor and John for Best Director—making them the first father and son to win at the same ceremony. Huston’s final film was The Furies (1950), a Western with Barbara Stanwyck and Wendell Corey, in which his last line was “There will never be another one like me.”
Awards and Honors
Huston won the Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). He received a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor for his role in Dodsworth (1936) and was Oscar-nominated for the same role. In 1960, a decade after his death, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6624 Hollywood Boulevard.
Additional Resources
Huston died on April 7, 1950, of an aortic aneurysm in his Beverly Hills hotel suite, one day after his birthday. He was cremated. As the patriarch of four generations of the Huston acting family—including son John, grandchildren Anjelica and Danny Huston, and great-grandchild Jack Huston—his legacy extends far beyond his own career. More detailed information about his life and work is available through Wikipedia and other biographical archives.
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