John Huston (1906-1987), American film director and actor, whose first venture as a director, the film version of The Maltese Falcon, a detective story written in 1930 by the American writer Dashiell Hammett, won him Academy Awards in 1941 for best writing and best direction. He was born in Nevada, Missouri, son of the noted stage and screen actor Walter Huston. After leaving school at the age of 14, he spent 20 years in a variety of professions, working as a boxer, actor, editor, artist, reporter, and screenwriter.

Huston made three documentaries for the United States Army during World War II, for which he was awarded the Legion of Merit and was promoted to the position of major. Huston's work with Humphrey Bogart—who played the leading role in The Maltese Falcon—also produced such film classics as Key Largo (1948) and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). For his performance in the latter, Huston's father won the Academy Award for best supporting actor. Bogart himself won the Academy Award for best actor for his work under Huston's direction in The African Queen (1951). Huston also successfully transferred to the screen works by such respected American writers as Stephen Crane (The Red Badge of Courage, 1951), Arthur Miller (The Misfits, 1961), Tennessee Williams (The Night of the Iguana, 1964), Flannery O'Connor (Wise Blood, 1979), and by the British writer Malcolm Lowry (Under the Volcano, 1984). His last completed films were Prizzi's Honor (1985), in which his daughter Angelica Huston won an Academy Award for best supporting actress, and The Dead (1987), which was based on a short story by the Irish writer James Joyce, adapted for the screen by Huston's son Tony, and which also starred his daughter Angelica. Films in which Huston has acted include The Bible (1966), The Cardinal (1963), and Chinatown (1974). His autobiography, An Open Book, was published in 1980.