Anjelica Huston On Nicholson: ‘Men Love Jack Almost As Much As Women Love Jack’

Actress Anjelica Huston is the author of a new book called: “A Story Lately Told: Coming of Age in Ireland, London and New York.” Actually, this is only the first part of what will be a two-part memoir.

Gayle King said on “CBS This Morning” that she went to the book to look for the Jack Nicholson section, but it wasn’t there. Anjelica Huston said she is saving that part of her life story for another time.

Huston acknowledged that people would be fascinated by the section on Nicholson, “He’s a fascinating man and people like to know details,” she said. “Men love Jack almost as much as women love Jack.”

Anjelica was reluctant to say how long they “dated,” saying it was a “funny word,” but that they “lived together for 17 years.”

She preferred to talk about how the book allowed her to discuss her mother, who often took a backseat to her famous father. Huston said:

“She was incredibly beautiful. She was an ex-ballerina. One of the pleasures of writing this book was talking about my mother, because my dad gets a lot of attention and my mother really deserved it. She was incredibly special, very beloved to me and I lost her early. So it’s important to me to be able to talk about her.”

Huston’s grandfather, Walter Huston, won an Oscar for “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” which was directed by Huston’s father, John Huston, who also took home an Oscar. This family connection is what led her into acting.

She doesn’t feel that having her family name is a burden. “I always liked being a Huston,” she said on the CBS show. “I always felt like it was my right, and it was my birthright and it was who I was.”

Huston objected to the fact that her father is often described as “Hemmingway-esque,” but she believes her father was “very much who he was.”

She added, “He wasn’t like anyone else, really. He was an adventurer, very cultured, but at the same time he was a country man. He was raw. He had big appetites. He was a lion.”

On “CTM” Huston said that many actors get into the industry because they have very similar childhoods:

“I think a lot of actors and indeed a lot of artists spend alone time when they’re little,” she said. “Not necessarily unhappy, but time spent in contemplation and I grew up in the west of Ireland, which was quite a remote place and my best friend was the mirror… I was accused of vanity, but I think children really look into the mirror to see who they are.”

While Anjelica Huston has had a long and varied film career, and although her family connections are interesting, when it comes to telling memoirs it’s the “juicy bits” that sell books. So, part two – the Jack Nicholson years – is what the public is waiting for!