Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Angelica Houston is a remarkable actress who has lived a
Speaker 1: remarkable life. She has an Oscar for her emotionally complex
Speaker 1: and very funny performance and Prese's honor as the Black
Speaker 1: Sheep mob daughter may Rose pretty Man and a Maya.
Speaker 1: I've got a reputation to live up, and the family
Speaker 1: skin everybody be disappointed if I stopped her. Pitched perfect
Speaker 1: mor Tsia in the Adams family will be loved for generations.
Speaker 1: I'm just like any modern woman trying to have it all,
Speaker 1: loving husband, family. It's just I wish I had more
Speaker 1: time to seek out the dark forces and join their
Speaker 1: hellish crusade. But to fully understand the context of our
Speaker 1: conversation today, you'll also need a line from a movie
Speaker 1: Houston had nothing to do with. We're gonna meet Jack
Speaker 1: and Angelican have a drink there, and if you'd like
Speaker 1: to come, we'd love to have you and we can
Speaker 1: just sit and talk. Nothing. That was Paul Simon ad
Speaker 1: libbing to Diane Keaton in six trying to conjure the
Speaker 1: most unpretentious but exclusive party in all the world. Jack
Speaker 1: and Angelica will be there, no last names needed. Jack
Speaker 1: is Jack Nicholson, of course, Houston's boyfriend for almost twenty years,
Speaker 1: starting in the early seventies, and for all that time,
Speaker 1: nobody embodied the nonchalant glamor of the Hollywood New Wave
Speaker 1: more than they did. Angelica Houston is the daughter of
Speaker 1: Prima Ballerina and Rica Soma and John Houston, one of
Speaker 1: the greatest filmmakers who's ever lived, the director of The
Speaker 1: Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the African
Speaker 1: Queen and Prese's Honor, for which his daughter one that Oscar.
Speaker 1: Angelica didn't spend a lot of time on set with
Speaker 1: her dad growing up, but she does remember being with
Speaker 1: him in the studios smoky Darkwood offices in the final
Speaker 1: days of a Hollywood inhabited by the fast talking, sharply
Speaker 1: dressed producers and agents of the Golden Age. They were
Speaker 1: the remnants of the old School. They were serious. There
Speaker 1: was a definite regard for the autour. The agents worked
Speaker 1: for the auteurs, and these guys commanded respect. Even Irving Lazar,
Speaker 1: who was the book agent who was commonly known as
Speaker 1: Swifty and Swift, was about four ft tall and looked
Speaker 1: like a gnome. Yeah, but there was there was a
Speaker 1: kind of grandeur to it. Um. I remember being around them,
Speaker 1: and they were affectionate towards me. I was, I was
Speaker 1: my dad's daughter, so I was. I was sort of tolerated, well,
Speaker 1: maybe more than tolerated. Well tolerated. Well, you did the
Speaker 1: one film with your dad first, which was what year
Speaker 1: was that? That was called A Walk with Love and
Speaker 1: Death and that was in nine. I was sixteen years old.
Speaker 1: I knew nothing except that I wanted to be a
Speaker 1: movie actress and why movie actresses were beautiful? They and
Speaker 1: they got the attention of the men in Hollywood, well
Speaker 1: even before the men in Hollywood, you know, because I
Speaker 1: didn't grow up in Hollywood. I grew up in Ireland
Speaker 1: and I went to school in England. And um, I
Speaker 1: had a really fantastic mother who who showed me not
Speaker 1: just movies, but showed me theater and took me to
Speaker 1: plays and operas. And where was she from? She was Italian,
Speaker 1: but she was raised in New York and she had
Speaker 1: been a balanchine dancer. And um, she had a very eccentric,
Speaker 1: wonderful father. What do you do? He was a restaurantur
Speaker 1: called Tony Sulma, and he used to stand on his
Speaker 1: head and sing opera for his clientele. Restaurant it was
Speaker 1: called Tony's Wife, and the Rockefellers went there, and people
Speaker 1: loved him a lot. He was like no one I've
Speaker 1: ever met. He was an eccentric but wonderful. But my
Speaker 1: mother took me everywhere. I saw not only Maria Callis
Speaker 1: singing Tosca, but I also saw I con Tina Turner
Speaker 1: when I was like fifteen years old at the Revolution. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw it all. I saw Sir John Gielgud, I
Speaker 1: saw Dame Margaret Rutherford, I saw Laurence Olivier, I saw
Speaker 1: Daddy LaRue. I saw the best that England had to offer. Um,
Speaker 1: your parents met where they met in Los Angeles many
Speaker 1: years before she'd come out here for what to work.
Speaker 1: She'd been offered a contract by Selznick because she was
Speaker 1: very beautiful in her face, was on the cover of
Speaker 1: Life magazine as a as a young bell or Arena,
Speaker 1: she roomed with Audrey Hepburn. She was part of that
Speaker 1: whole movement of young women, very beautiful, who are being
Speaker 1: groomed for stardom. Um, and then she met my father.
Speaker 1: She had actually met him at Tony's restaurant. My grandfather
Speaker 1: always insisted she write an essay if she was allowed
Speaker 1: to go to the theater or to see a ballet.
Speaker 1: So um, some years before my father was about to
Speaker 1: go off to war, and he'd promised her that, um,
Speaker 1: he would take her to the ballet and she wouldn't
Speaker 1: have to write an essay about it. Um. But then
Speaker 1: he'd he'd renequed on his promise because he was sent
Speaker 1: off to war. So at least that's how he did.
Speaker 1: He was a director already and um, they sent him
Speaker 1: there to film, and that's right. He did several movies. Um,
Speaker 1: he did Let There Be Light in the Battle of
Speaker 1: San Pietro, seminal documentaries for that time. He had a
Speaker 1: bit of a fight with the War Department later on
Speaker 1: because they considered them a bit too graphic, a bit
Speaker 1: too honest, we say. And when he came back from
Speaker 1: the war, because when I'm trying to track here is
Speaker 1: Ireland England, l A, why did you grow up in Ireland?
Speaker 1: Was that his idea? He wanted you guys to live
Speaker 1: over there. Well, he was part of the committee for
Speaker 1: the first Amendment. McCarthy was hard at it, beating all
Speaker 1: the writers out of Hollywood. My father and Humphrey Bogart,
Speaker 1: Gary Cooper, Lauren Bacall, a bunch of them formed a
Speaker 1: committee for the First Amendment, which was basically that you know,
Speaker 1: you could stand on your on your rights as an
Speaker 1: individual as a citizen not have to answer questions from
Speaker 1: the committee. And I think the whole thing left Dad
Speaker 1: with a really bad taste in his mouth. He was
Speaker 1: making a movie called African Queen when I was born.
Speaker 1: And then afterwards, when where did your mother deliver you
Speaker 1: cedars of Lebanon in Santa Monica? Where did they shoot
Speaker 1: in Africa? Yes, in the Belgian Congo. Hepburn and Bogart
Speaker 1: and your father went to the Belgian Congo. And is
Speaker 1: back in the day when women would deliver babies and
Speaker 1: the father was on the road. That's right. Your dad
Speaker 1: was making African Queen when you were delivered. Yes, he was,
Speaker 1: and the call was making meals from you know, I
Speaker 1: think cooking up bugs for dinner and stuff um. When
Speaker 1: he returned. He then went practically immediately into Moulin Rouge
Speaker 1: in Paris, and my mother was sort of chasing him
Speaker 1: across the continent and left me behind. I was like
Speaker 1: three months old, and finally came back and collected my
Speaker 1: brother and I and brought us to France where we
Speaker 1: lived in Dauville for a while and Saint Jean leus
Speaker 1: to a base for you or European base exactly. But
Speaker 1: when you say she was chasing him around, was he?
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, I'm gonna I'll get this out of
Speaker 1: the way up front, Okay, I want to. He was
Speaker 1: such a great director, One of the greatest directors that
Speaker 1: ever lived was John Houston. Incorporated a tough thing. To
Speaker 1: keep God those fires going? Did he always have to
Speaker 1: be shooting and going and working? He was on Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was on the march my father. He was working
Speaker 1: on the next picture while shooting the last Pig. He
Speaker 1: loved to shoot, and he loved locations, and he loved
Speaker 1: um hotels, hotels, challenges, women, consequent cigars, a certain amount
Speaker 1: of liquor. He liked the chase. Uh. He was a sportsman,
Speaker 1: a daredevil, and I think extremely enticing to women in general.
Speaker 1: So I think my mother was attempting to keep up,
Speaker 1: which of course was hopeless. It was hard to tame him. Yes, indeed,
Speaker 1: I think she tried well. I don't know that she
Speaker 1: tried to tame him, but I think she tried to
Speaker 1: keep up, to keep up with him. Your parents get
Speaker 1: divorced when you're high old. My mother died when I
Speaker 1: was sixteen years old in a car crash, and Um,
Speaker 1: they hadn't divorced. Where did this happen the accident? Um,
Speaker 1: she was killed traveling to Venice where were I was
Speaker 1: in London at school? What was she like? What was
Speaker 1: your mom like? Um? My mother was incredibly beautiful. She
Speaker 1: was very sensitive. She had an Italian background, even though
Speaker 1: she was a New York Italian. Um. She she was
Speaker 1: a good girl. Um. She pleased her father. She wrote
Speaker 1: him long letters when she was on the road in
Speaker 1: the ballet Um. She was still in the court of
Speaker 1: ballet Um when she was in her teens and almost
Speaker 1: until she married my father. She'd come to Los Angeles
Speaker 1: just in the previous couple of years, and she had
Speaker 1: gotten immediately pregnant with my brother. She had incredible taste.
Speaker 1: I don't know where she got it from, but she
Speaker 1: knew about things. Yeah, she was a great decorator. She
Speaker 1: was a wonderful hostess. But She was earthy as well
Speaker 1: as just beautiful and erudite. She had a full laugh
Speaker 1: and she had great wit. And I think it was
Speaker 1: hard for her because in a way, you know, she
Speaker 1: wasn't like those beautiful adjuncts to the gentleman. She was
Speaker 1: very specifically herself. But when your mom dies in your sixteen,
Speaker 1: which is a very significant age, what happens to you
Speaker 1: in terms of your mom, I'm assuming it was around
Speaker 1: more yeah, and I was living with my mother. I
Speaker 1: may have been seventeen, actually going to school in London.
Speaker 1: I'd done this movie with my dad where we were
Speaker 1: very very bad relationship. Point during that movie, I said,
Speaker 1: all my life, I want to be an actress. I
Speaker 1: want to be an actress. And finally he'd launched me.
Speaker 1: This was, you know, a huge thing that he'd done
Speaker 1: for me. I think, against everyone's better judgment. And to
Speaker 1: tell you the truth, I never liked the part. I
Speaker 1: never liked the film. I didn't really have any regard
Speaker 1: for it. And who was I to feel that way?
Speaker 1: And who was I not to be grateful? So this
Speaker 1: was a really bad moment between my father and I.
Speaker 1: And it was after I came back from making that movie.
Speaker 1: Um barely speaking to him, which it's not a good
Speaker 1: relationship for a director actress. It's an ugly thing. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I then took a job understudying Marianne Faithful in Tony
Speaker 1: Richardson's Hamlet, which yeah at the Roundhouse, Nicol Williamson was
Speaker 1: playing Hamlet. I rather enjoyed that because, um, Marianne was
Speaker 1: in delicate health and she often didn't go on, so
Speaker 1: I had I had some good opportunities to go on.
Speaker 1: And Shakespeare is like a protective shield. He's like a
Speaker 1: hazmat suit. You can't be bad. I don't think with
Speaker 1: with lines. Shakespeare a lot a lot better, you know.
Speaker 1: And I remember lines in A Walk with Love and
Speaker 1: Death like go shoot a cow. And I reacted so
Speaker 1: badly to the script. I was barely able to do it,
Speaker 1: you know. But now having been given a little bit
Speaker 1: of a chance to go on and flex my muscles, um,
Speaker 1: I was really liking, you know, treading the boards. It
Speaker 1: was at that time that my mother died doing that show.
Speaker 1: I was doing that show, and and when she died,
Speaker 1: the show was on its way to New York, and
Speaker 1: I grabbed a seat on board and went to New York,
Speaker 1: and I don't even remember my father's having an objection.
Speaker 1: I think he was those sort of bewildered by by
Speaker 1: my powers of escape. And by the time he caught
Speaker 1: up with me in New York, I was already modeling.
Speaker 1: I had started a career for myself, and I was
Speaker 1: pretty determined to lead life my way. New York was
Speaker 1: never home for you, no, UM. I stayed initially with
Speaker 1: my best friend at the time, who I had met
Speaker 1: when I was like seven and she was ten. UM.
Speaker 1: Her name is Joan Buck. She was the daughter of
Speaker 1: my father's producer on those war movies, UM and cameraman,
Speaker 1: Jules Buck. And I stayed with Joan and she was
Speaker 1: working for Mademoiselle at the time, so I met a
Speaker 1: lot of people through her. UM I met very good photographers,
Speaker 1: like people dan't Helmett Newton and David Bailey who had
Speaker 1: actually met in in London, and Dick Avedon who I
Speaker 1: had met in London, who was a friend of my mother's,
Speaker 1: and so UM I started to model. UM At first,
Speaker 1: it was kind of difficult because I didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of self confidence. I knew what I wanted to do,
Speaker 1: but UM, it wasn't a natural fit. I remember going
Speaker 1: into Eileen Ford and she said, well, obviously you need
Speaker 1: a nose job, and then she asked to look at
Speaker 1: my legs and it was it was not that comfortable,
Speaker 1: but yes, yeah, yeah. But on the other hand, I
Speaker 1: had a few um champions, Dick Avadan being one of them,
Speaker 1: and we did a really nice layout in Vogue, like
Speaker 1: a lot of pages in Ireland, and so I kind
Speaker 1: of gained a reputation as an editorial model, not an
Speaker 1: advertising model. So it was considered very grand to be
Speaker 1: an editorial model, except that one didn't make money, you know,
Speaker 1: for editorial you made a few hundred dollars a day, yes,
Speaker 1: as opposed to the girls who were out there for
Speaker 1: Claire All or whatever. And I was never going to
Speaker 1: be a Claire All girl. So um. After about four
Speaker 1: years where I was in a relationship with a much
Speaker 1: older photographer called Bob Richardson and he was great to
Speaker 1: work for a lot less nice to live with, but
Speaker 1: went home. That's right. Yeah, you met him shoot for
Speaker 1: Harper's Bazaar. He was the photographer. He was the photographer
Speaker 1: editorial and you were how old I was and was,
Speaker 1: but he was an artist and he was a magician.
Speaker 1: He'd look at you through the lens and then he'd
Speaker 1: just take the camera down and place it in his
Speaker 1: lap for a minute and stare at you. And you
Speaker 1: felt like you could really provide the goods. Sometimes after
Speaker 1: we worked together, I'd be trembling, I'd be shaking, um
Speaker 1: from the impact. Um, there's something about working with people
Speaker 1: who are very, very good. It's the biggest turn on
Speaker 1: in the world. Talent is the greatest effdaisac it is
Speaker 1: And I'd have to say that, you know, our relationship
Speaker 1: was very much guided by that. Was that was central
Speaker 1: to our relationship. I don't really want to remember how
Speaker 1: we were um as a man and a woman. I
Speaker 1: much prefer to remember as as as photographer and molleagues. Yes,
Speaker 1: as colleagues, and as two people who went after something
Speaker 1: is a period that ends New York. Well, my father,
Speaker 1: of course, was horrified by the fact that I was
Speaker 1: going out with a forty two year old man, and
Speaker 1: not just any forty two year old man. Bob had
Speaker 1: a history of of drugs, and Um, where's your father
Speaker 1: anti drug? Oh? Seriously, yes, extremely extremely anti drug. Um,
Speaker 1: and I don't think any fathers all that much in
Speaker 1: love with the idea of his seventeen year old girl
Speaker 1: getting involved with a drug addict. But the fact about
Speaker 1: Bob was that he was um one of of a
Speaker 1: group of rather important and interesting and famous people who
Speaker 1: went to see a doctor called Dr Max Jacobson. He
Speaker 1: had people like Margot Fontaine and Jack Kennedy and Truman, Capodi,
Speaker 1: Tennessee Williams, a lot of very interesting people, and um,
Speaker 1: he gave them the combination of of drugs, some I
Speaker 1: think very pleasant and mind expanding, and then he'd hit
Speaker 1: them with something not quite so good. He was manipulative.
Speaker 1: And there was an article written about Bob Richardson in
Speaker 1: the New York Times. It talked about his experience with
Speaker 1: Dr Max Jacobson. And my father read this article and
Speaker 1: his consequence thought, well, maybe this is not a common
Speaker 1: street my daughter's chosen to be with, but someone of
Speaker 1: deeper interest. So he invited Bob and I to go
Speaker 1: on a trip to Mexico. It was an ill fated
Speaker 1: excursion in that um, straight out I got the worst
Speaker 1: sunburned in my entire life. They thought about you know
Speaker 1: what I wanted to drink, They fought about, you know
Speaker 1: where we should eat. They fought about a lot of things.
Speaker 1: At the end of the that trip, my father went
Speaker 1: on an excursion solo to LAPAs to find me a
Speaker 1: black pearl and came back empty handed except for a
Speaker 1: pair of straw hats. Despondent um. If I remember correctly
Speaker 1: from the book, this was the period of lots of
Speaker 1: jewels and furs. Lutely just a cascade. Yes. And then
Speaker 1: we were leaving to go back to Los Angeles, and
Speaker 1: Bob and I had an epic fight, and um, we
Speaker 1: parted at Los Angeles Airport. It and I'd separated our
Speaker 1: clothes from our bags the night before, and down to
Speaker 1: the last minute, I wasn't sure if I could actually
Speaker 1: make the cut. Yeah, but I did, and I didn't
Speaker 1: look back. I went to live with my dad for
Speaker 1: the next four or five months where in the Palisades
Speaker 1: is he in l a as a function purely of
Speaker 1: the business. And this is where did he love Southern California,
Speaker 1: actually loathed it like it had had, you know, a
Speaker 1: certain sort of despisal for it. They couldn't decide on
Speaker 1: a on a particular style of house, and how you know.
Speaker 1: Tutor was followed by Regency was followed by George and
Speaker 1: aesthetically it didn't please him. He felt that it was
Speaker 1: all too safe, um, predictable bourgeois, um no man and
Speaker 1: had a great line, there's no place on earth where
Speaker 1: the homes are more finely appointed than in bel Air.
Speaker 1: And these and the artwork and the tapestries. He said,
Speaker 1: these moguls who control these media companies, and they have
Speaker 1: the most elegant taste. And he wondered what happened to
Speaker 1: that taste from when they left their driveway and drove
Speaker 1: through the gates of the studio. Where did that taste go? Well,
Speaker 1: sometimes they took it to their offices some day, and
Speaker 1: then others not so much. Yes, and it has been
Speaker 1: for a long time. And something about it said home
Speaker 1: to me. When I began to live here, the Palisades
Speaker 1: was very beautiful. It was sort of semi rural. Um.
Speaker 1: My father had just gotten remarried to a woman called C. C. Shane. Um.
Speaker 1: I could ride horses with C. C. Up in will Rogers.
Speaker 1: I really liked Will Rogers a lot. Um. Something about
Speaker 1: being in this city that wasn't concrete, being in place
Speaker 1: where you could go out to restaurants and shops, and
Speaker 1: and eli was great in the day. I mean it
Speaker 1: was fun. There was the Luau, there were there were
Speaker 1: about seven great restaurants. Uhcan. Yeah, there were some really
Speaker 1: wonderful places to go and be. And I think in
Speaker 1: the day it was very fun place to change. Ah,
Speaker 1: the eighties probably just gets too built up. It got
Speaker 1: too built up, and Rodeo Drive became very glitzy. Up
Speaker 1: until that point, there was a kind of comfort to
Speaker 1: the place. And and I longed for beautiful weather and
Speaker 1: brown skin. I mean, that was the thing that you
Speaker 1: really wished for in school when I was growing and Nicholson,
Speaker 1: of all people, I said to him, I said, you
Speaker 1: could have any home anywhere, and you live here. And
Speaker 1: he said, and he I can't do my bad Jack,
Speaker 1: But he was like, he said, yeah, he said, this
Speaker 1: is my town. Oh he loves this is my town. Said,
Speaker 1: he just loves it. He loves it. He doesn't have
Speaker 1: to leave home. He's completely happy, has his pictures, he's
Speaker 1: got his books, his teeth, and his Lakers. I was
Speaker 1: so sad about Kobe. I was as sad for Jack
Speaker 1: about Kobe as I was for Kobe. Frankly, the Lakers
Speaker 1: are almost part of Jack, like an extra limb. But
Speaker 1: but yes, it was truly his town, and I fell
Speaker 1: in love with it as I fell in love with
Speaker 1: jack Um. There was a kind of freedom. You could
Speaker 1: be completely um under the radar here New York. Every
Speaker 1: time you go outside, people see you, people recognize you
Speaker 1: for some reason. I was recognizable quite early, and I
Speaker 1: never really liked it, you know, unless I was ready
Speaker 1: for it. I'm fine if I put on the dog
Speaker 1: and go out, but I'm not fine if I'm taken unawares.
Speaker 1: And something about um feeling exposed like you did on
Speaker 1: the streets of New York. It's still it still takes
Speaker 1: me by surprise. And there's a look people give you
Speaker 1: in the streets sometimes I'm sure you know it, which
Speaker 1: is like it's a look of appreciation, and it's almost
Speaker 1: a wink. And they don't want to bother you, but
Speaker 1: still you feel like they know me. They know me
Speaker 1: too much. They signal it, especially when you think you
Speaker 1: look shitty. But everyone's got a camera in their pocket
Speaker 1: twenty four hours a day, and they take pictures of
Speaker 1: you eating, and they take pictures of me with my children,
Speaker 1: and they make your life miserable, miserable, and it's a
Speaker 1: very different thing for me, having been a model. I
Speaker 1: loved having my picture taken, I really did. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a form of addiction and also the way of a
Speaker 1: good photographer takes your picture. I'm reminded briefly of Bill Cunningham,
Speaker 1: who was essentially a street photographer. But he would say
Speaker 1: do you mind, and then and you go no, no,
Speaker 1: go ahead. But there was a kind of decorum about it. Now,
Speaker 1: not at all. And when did you decided to get
Speaker 1: back on the horse acting? Was when I split with
Speaker 1: Bob at l a X. And what's the next project
Speaker 1: to take on as an actress? The last Tycoon with
Speaker 1: Elia Kazan DeNiro with Bob de Niro, But Jack was
Speaker 1: maybe going to do that and then decide um, Actually, yes,
Speaker 1: just just where did you meet? I met him at
Speaker 1: his house at his birthday party? I went with Cecy.
Speaker 1: She said, oh, there's a party of Jack Nichols. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's how loose things were those days. And all of
Speaker 1: his nicknames, what did he call you? SUTs? And then
Speaker 1: it's the Big which came from the Big the Big
Speaker 1: Fabulous because I used to say fabulous all the time,
Speaker 1: so it was the Big Fabulous. And then it became
Speaker 1: the big What did he call the car? The Mercedes
Speaker 1: was the what bing bing bing cherry. He doesn't still
Speaker 1: have that card, as he was a car. I have
Speaker 1: a six Mercedes the last year they made the old model,
Speaker 1: such a beautiful car. What do you do you call
Speaker 1: your car name? No, but I'm going to now mine
Speaker 1: call it. That was another nickname Jack had for me, mine,
Speaker 1: which became minal. When we were skiing, I'd be swallowing
Speaker 1: down the slope and he'd be up on a on
Speaker 1: a chair lift, and I'd heard Angelica Houston. Another seminal
Speaker 1: figure of the seventies and eighties his poet and punk
Speaker 1: rocker Patti Smith. Like Houston, Smith is a great artist
Speaker 1: who had to navigate a complex relationship with another great artist,
Speaker 1: in Smith's case, photographer Robert Maplethorpe, who died of complications
Speaker 1: from AIDS in nine. You know, I'm still connected with him.
Speaker 1: I still think about him every day. And I mean,
Speaker 1: of course, you know we were boyfriend and girlfriend. We
Speaker 1: did all the things young people do. But as he
Speaker 1: felt freer as an artist in a human being, the
Speaker 1: next thing that happened is he blossomed and felt his
Speaker 1: sexual nature. We had to weather that. It was difficult
Speaker 1: and it took a few years because neither one of
Speaker 1: us wanted to part. You can get a link to
Speaker 1: my full conversation with Patti Smith by texting Smith to
Speaker 1: seven zero zero one. That's s M. I T H
Speaker 1: two seven zero one zero one. I'm Alec Baldwin and
Speaker 1: this is here's the thing. When Angelica Houston's stepmother, Ccy
Speaker 1: brought her to Jack Nicholson's birthday party in n she
Speaker 1: didn't have imagined what she was setting in motion. Houston
Speaker 1: was smitten and spent the night. He made me laugh,
Speaker 1: but he sent me home in a cab. I showed
Speaker 1: up the next day in my evening dress from the
Speaker 1: night before, and Cecy said, what are you thinking? I
Speaker 1: had no idea how I should be treated. Basically, I
Speaker 1: was about nineteen or twenty. I was still a baby kid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: without any idea how I should be treated or you know,
Speaker 1: sense of decor. No none. And I remember desperately hoping
Speaker 1: he'd call me, and when he did, I said, immediately,
Speaker 1: but if you take me out, you have to pick
Speaker 1: me up and you have to drive me home. And
Speaker 1: I remember this long pause on the other end of
Speaker 1: the phone. But he did just that. Once he was
Speaker 1: kind of once he signed on, yes, once he signed
Speaker 1: on her, he was pointed in the right direction. He
Speaker 1: could be very gallant. Um. Jack was a wonderful boyfriend,
Speaker 1: too easily distracted. UM do you find that getting married
Speaker 1: and settling down, It's just like there's no time for that.
Speaker 1: You're too busy enjoying this life. Well, I can't say
Speaker 1: that I really enjoyed it all that much. I spent um.
Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time and tears, a lot
Speaker 1: of time crying when I was with Jack a lot
Speaker 1: of the time, feeling slighted a lot of the time, UM,
Speaker 1: feeling like he didn't get me enough, or that I
Speaker 1: wasn't getting enough attention from him. His attention was very splintered.
Speaker 1: He he reminded me sometimes of UM. A wonderful dog
Speaker 1: we used to have called Big Boy together, who's a
Speaker 1: He was half Labrador, half Golden Retriever, big black dog,
Speaker 1: wonderful dog. But he'd got a look in his eye
Speaker 1: and that was it. He was off. And I always
Speaker 1: knew that I really wasn't the most important thing in
Speaker 1: Jack's life. I was your dad all over again. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: and and Jack got a tremendous amount of attention, and
Speaker 1: that was hard for me, you know, because also I
Speaker 1: knew what it was to get my own kind of attention. Um,
Speaker 1: and so it turns into a kind of competition. When
Speaker 1: did that begin? Meaning when did you start to say?
Speaker 1: What am I going to make me and my work
Speaker 1: the most important thing? When does that start? It started
Speaker 1: pretty early on, and I think, oh, it was difficult
Speaker 1: because I didn't really have any background in acting. I've
Speaker 1: been around these guys all my life, but I had
Speaker 1: never studied. And I remember going to a class A
Speaker 1: good friend of Jack's called Harry Giddis, wonderful guy, took
Speaker 1: me to a class at Eric Morris's studio, and I
Speaker 1: was just sort of appalled. Um, there was Linda Crystal
Speaker 1: on the floor begging for a dime. That was you know,
Speaker 1: it was a whole kind of scene in there, and
Speaker 1: I'm We're coming out and being just indignant and outraged.
Speaker 1: And I knew nothing except that I had an instinct.
Speaker 1: So shortly thereafter, I was speaking to a friend of
Speaker 1: mine and she said, I'd like to introduce you to
Speaker 1: someone that I think you might like. She's a teacher um,
Speaker 1: and her name is Peggy Fury. And I walked into
Speaker 1: Peggy's studio and I audited maybe for three classes before
Speaker 1: she said, all right, you know, let's see what you
Speaker 1: do in this exercise. And God, I fell in love.
Speaker 1: I fell in love with acting. I fell in love
Speaker 1: with her. I fell in love with that class. And
Speaker 1: I was in that class for about three or four years,
Speaker 1: just doing scenes. She turned on all the lights in me,
Speaker 1: you know, and around that. What about her? How how
Speaker 1: did she succeed in doing that? First of all, she
Speaker 1: really listened and she really watched you, and she built
Speaker 1: up a complicity with me. So someone was really bad,
Speaker 1: So it's Bob over again, but a different medium. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if someone was really bad in the class or
Speaker 1: was sort of hashing it up in a scene or something,
Speaker 1: she would kind of sneak a look at me, like
Speaker 1: give me a wink or something. She made me feel
Speaker 1: like I knew what I was doing. And sometimes she'd
Speaker 1: she'd criticize me outright, but she never embarrassed me. She
Speaker 1: she loved props. Peggy would love it, like if you
Speaker 1: brought food into class, because then you know, you'd eat
Speaker 1: the food after the scene. There was something so motherly
Speaker 1: and so um warm about her. She reminded me of
Speaker 1: the way I was with my mother, and I think
Speaker 1: that was something that I really needed at the time.
Speaker 1: And then women helped you. Yeah, women always. Actually, it's true,
Speaker 1: it's true. Although they challenge you, women, it's as gentler approach.
Speaker 1: And I think men challenge you. It's it's not because
Speaker 1: they love you less. It's because they want you to
Speaker 1: prove yourself somehow or or at least the men in
Speaker 1: my life kind of were more attracted to what was
Speaker 1: independent in me. So the first film you do that
Speaker 1: is a real movie that you get some attention for
Speaker 1: is Preature's honor. He was, and you were with Jack.
Speaker 1: Then I was with Jack. So when you're on the
Speaker 1: set of the film and it's Jack, it's your boyfriend
Speaker 1: and your dad, and you're back on a set with
Speaker 1: your dad after the last go round, wasn't it was
Speaker 1: not a party? And I always remember Jack said to me,
Speaker 1: I said, what was it like on the set of
Speaker 1: Chinatown where it's this iconic director and you have great
Speaker 1: movie star and Polanski is about to become an iconic director.
Speaker 1: He's on his way to that and I said, what
Speaker 1: was it like with the three of them together? And
Speaker 1: I'll do my bad imitation of your dad to Jack
Speaker 1: said that, Uh, he said that Houston called him Roman,
Speaker 1: You call him Roman, and and he said Polanski would
Speaker 1: hold forth with all this kind of direction, and and
Speaker 1: Houston would turn him and say, now, Roman, there are
Speaker 1: really only two directions, a little more or a little
Speaker 1: less and really and and I thought, what a what
Speaker 1: a world to be with these three like titans wherever
Speaker 1: you want to call them. On the set of the film. Well,
Speaker 1: so I remember on Chinatown Jack going like, Roman wants
Speaker 1: me to wear this fucking package on my nose. He
Speaker 1: doesn't want to shoot my face. He wants this bandage
Speaker 1: on my face. But of course it's the most iconic
Speaker 1: still still in movies practically. What was it like for
Speaker 1: you when you were doing Pretzy? Um? I felt like,
Speaker 1: oh when I when I first of all, the part
Speaker 1: didn't come to me through either of them. It came
Speaker 1: to me from John Foreman, who put me in a
Speaker 1: movie called The Ice Pirates, which was we used to
Speaker 1: call them be movies, but um it was. It was
Speaker 1: a pretty pretty tragic movie UM in which I played
Speaker 1: UM made of the most powerful swordswoman in the universe.
Speaker 1: But I liked it a lot because I got to
Speaker 1: play more type. I wasn't playing a wilting flower. I
Speaker 1: like that a lot. And I got to decapitate men
Speaker 1: and stuff. So that was that worked for me pretty
Speaker 1: well in that movie. And as I left the set
Speaker 1: one night, Oh and my love my love interest was
Speaker 1: John Mattuzac. I used to climb in like a tree.
Speaker 1: He was fund football player, the two's um. But anyways,
Speaker 1: I was leaving the set one night, John gave me
Speaker 1: a book Preaches Honor and said, I'd like you to
Speaker 1: read this, tell me what you think. So I read
Speaker 1: it overnight. I said to him the next day it's wonderful,
Speaker 1: such a good book. And he said, um, so what
Speaker 1: do you think of may Rose? And I said, wow,
Speaker 1: that's a great part. He said, yeah, what do you
Speaker 1: think about you playing may Rose and Jack to play
Speaker 1: Charlie Partana and your father to direct. And I went, no,
Speaker 1: don't do that to me, John, God, that's terrible. Don't
Speaker 1: do that to me. Tonightmare a nightmare. And then he said, well,
Speaker 1: we have to go and recruit them, and I went,
Speaker 1: you can recruit them I'm not going to recruit them.
Speaker 1: Finger nothing, not a finger, And then cut to a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks later, John is on my doorstep to
Speaker 1: pick me up to go to Mexico to talk to
Speaker 1: my dad about doing preseas Honor, and I said, I'm
Speaker 1: not going with you. How's yes? You are? I want no,
Speaker 1: I'm not. He left alone, furious with me, came back.
Speaker 1: He'd been to Mexico. Jack was already in Mexico visiting
Speaker 1: with Dad. He'd somehow gotten Jack out there. They've been
Speaker 1: watching the female gymnasts in the Olympics for the better
Speaker 1: part of the weekend, and Jack had misunderstood. He thought
Speaker 1: the movie was a straight movie. He hadn't read it
Speaker 1: as a comedy. But as soon as Dad had explained
Speaker 1: to him that it was a comedy, he felt good
Speaker 1: about it, and that was it. He was on board.
Speaker 1: When did they find out you run? I'm not sure
Speaker 1: that they knew quite yet. They might not have. How
Speaker 1: was your father different when he directed you in that
Speaker 1: film than when he directed you in the first Did
Speaker 1: he treat you differently? Well, yeah, because he saw that
Speaker 1: I knew I'm happy. He saw that I was happy
Speaker 1: in my part There's there's nothing worse than a disgruntled actress,
Speaker 1: as I'm sure you know. And then the film comes
Speaker 1: out end and good time for you, very good time,
Speaker 1: very good you feel I felt? Honestly, how did you
Speaker 1: feel vindicated? Did I felt? Um? First of all, it
Speaker 1: was great playing the Wrong Girl, Um, because it was
Speaker 1: a movie about or at least my movie, because it
Speaker 1: was the movie within The movie for me, was about
Speaker 1: being the wrong girl, and so I got to play
Speaker 1: all of my insecurities. I got to demonstrate every single
Speaker 1: insecurity that I had in a in a totally confident way.
Speaker 1: So it was fantastic for me. Um, Just do things
Speaker 1: change in terms of what you're gonna do, who you're
Speaker 1: going to work with, the script of the usual bullshit,
Speaker 1: the scripts that are sent to you, the directors that
Speaker 1: are bringing up the changes. After that, it changes. Nothing
Speaker 1: changes your life like an oscar. Nothing changes here. And
Speaker 1: also you get offered a bunch of stuff that you're
Speaker 1: really wrong for. He want you to play Superwoman exactly,
Speaker 1: Superman and Supergirl. We want you to be the blonde part. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I got to play another great part. I got
Speaker 1: to be Lily Dylan and the Grifters a real blonde part.
Speaker 1: How did Jack and your father react when you want?
Speaker 1: I think they were a bit flabbergasted. Actually, I remember
Speaker 1: I didn't go backstage because I was in such a delirium.
Speaker 1: I ran back into the audience and you didn't go
Speaker 1: do the press lap back. I ran off stage before
Speaker 1: anyone could steer me in the right direction, and I
Speaker 1: went back to my seat and Jack was crying, and
Speaker 1: I thought, what's he crying about? And then I said,
Speaker 1: my dad was crying. Foreman was crying. He was probably
Speaker 1: crying because I forgot to thank him. But I couldn't
Speaker 1: believe it. It's like, how come they're all and done?
Speaker 1: Who's another director that you worked with who you felt
Speaker 1: that really tense? The wonderful Nick Rogue. I loved working
Speaker 1: with Nick. He was so subversive and so fun and
Speaker 1: naughty and smart. I did a movie with him called
Speaker 1: The Witches, and it's ostensibly for children, it's actually a
Speaker 1: very sophisticated movie. It's about Hitler. It's this strange group
Speaker 1: of women who come together in a hotel in Cornwall
Speaker 1: and they all turned into witches and they turned little
Speaker 1: boys into mice, and it's it's really a very good movie.
Speaker 1: I have to say it was certainly one of my
Speaker 1: best experiences. I grew up and watched a lot of
Speaker 1: television for a very specific period of my life. I
Speaker 1: watched f Troope and Gilligan's Island and The Munsters and
Speaker 1: The Adams Family and Candid Camera, and I watched and
Speaker 1: when as soon as the Errand Spelling era was launched,
Speaker 1: I never turned on the last brook As TV show
Speaker 1: I watched with any regularity as I used to watch
Speaker 1: Mary Hartman. Mary Hartman was the last show I watched.
Speaker 1: So if you told me that someone was going to
Speaker 1: take the Adams Family and make it into a film
Speaker 1: that I thought was really really funny, I say, you're
Speaker 1: out of your mind. And yet it's it's two of
Speaker 1: the funniest movies I've ever seen in my life. How
Speaker 1: did that happen? Um? Well, I'd have to say Barry
Speaker 1: was fabulous, But there was the genius Scott Ruden. And
Speaker 1: I think Scott. Scott is so passionate about the work.
Speaker 1: He's an amazing producer and he he I remember him
Speaker 1: being there day and night. He for for every scene.
Speaker 1: For people who don't know, Son and Philip was a
Speaker 1: great cinematographer before he directed directed films. I needed a
Speaker 1: good producer, probably unbelievable, and and I think occasionally they fought,
Speaker 1: but we never knew about it. Yeah, they were absolutely unified.
Speaker 1: And I'd get into a really bad mood because I
Speaker 1: had I had lifts on my eyes and lifts on
Speaker 1: my neck and corsets and nails, and you know, it
Speaker 1: was the most job four our makeup job, and it
Speaker 1: took another two hours to prep me before I went
Speaker 1: on set, and that it was just brutal. You couldn't
Speaker 1: sit down in the dress. It was a nightmare. Um.
Speaker 1: And every once in a while you'd have to wait
Speaker 1: for things to work, you know, and we're like, come
Speaker 1: on six hours later. You guys have to be kidding me.
Speaker 1: And they become and apologized in the sweetest way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did Cat in the Hat with Mike Myers. And
Speaker 1: they said, now remember that Mike comes in and we
Speaker 1: get him in makeup, and once he's done in makeup,
Speaker 1: and we have we've prelit his sets and we've rehearsed
Speaker 1: the scenes. And they got and they they said, were
Speaker 1: so frantic about the time we have Mike available because
Speaker 1: he's only going to work so many hours in his country,
Speaker 1: then we're gonna take all the ship off of him.
Speaker 1: They said, please don't be offended. But whatever scene you're
Speaker 1: in the middle of, and you're going to be in
Speaker 1: mice and when we they walking talking us that Mike
Speaker 1: is ready, we're gonna just stop everything and leave you dead,
Speaker 1: because we'll leave you by the side of the road.
Speaker 1: Well that's what it was like, except in this occasion
Speaker 1: was thing Harry Thing when I came to New York
Speaker 1: in seventy nine. I came to New York and somebody
Speaker 1: who I admired him to the ends of the earth,
Speaker 1: Prince loveliest, sweetest talesman, talented, used to sing opera to
Speaker 1: the children between takes. I mean, he'd do anything. He
Speaker 1: was special with some of the other leading men that
Speaker 1: you really really thought that this was really a great battery.
Speaker 1: That's a difficult question. I have to go to Jack,
Speaker 1: you know, just because the great ones provide, and it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily because you notice how great they're being. It's
Speaker 1: just that they're there for you. Jack did a thing
Speaker 1: in preseas where I come out of the wedding scene
Speaker 1: and my father has been a real asshole to me
Speaker 1: and and I'm crying and Jack offers me his handkerchief. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, an audience doesn't really know what that means
Speaker 1: at that time, but he gave me the opportunity to
Speaker 1: blow my nose really loud. You know. It's a comedy,
Speaker 1: that's what it is. It's somebody who who you can
Speaker 1: work off with, who you have that kind of repartee.
Speaker 1: I had it with Cusack and the Grifters. Um it's
Speaker 1: it's it's nice when you play, when you play with
Speaker 1: someone that hits the ball back. Oh, absolutely, pung and Cusack,
Speaker 1: who is kind of an enigma to me. He falls
Speaker 1: into that category of these predator naturally talented men, young
Speaker 1: leading man, brilliant actor while he was young. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a great thing to be able to put the
Speaker 1: Rubricks cube together while you still have the shine on
Speaker 1: you of the youth and beauty. And he's a very
Speaker 1: very talented guy who then all of a sudden he
Speaker 1: doesn't look like he really wants to work very much.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think it's interesting to me how
Speaker 1: he did a row of great films and then it's
Speaker 1: kind of like he couldn't. It was almost like he
Speaker 1: couldn't find anything he likes. Yeah, he burned out a bit.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was amazing in that movie. I was
Speaker 1: completely mesmerized by him. I was mesmerized by a Nette
Speaker 1: Benning too. I have to say when I went in
Speaker 1: UM to read, Martin Scorsese and Stephen were producing the
Speaker 1: film as well as as Stephen was directing it, and
Speaker 1: it was my instinct that I should be a blonde.
Speaker 1: But I didn't put on a wig to go for
Speaker 1: the meeting. I thought that was a bit on the nose.
Speaker 1: So I just wore a very suggestive dress and you know,
Speaker 1: went in and within the first ten minutes Stephen said,
Speaker 1: what if? What if you were a blonde? He gets it,
Speaker 1: He gets it, He gets me cool. Did your dad
Speaker 1: because of his great, great career, did he have films
Speaker 1: that he was really the most proud of, Like what
Speaker 1: did he feel was his best work? Well? I think
Speaker 1: he had a special regard for Treasure of Sarah Andre
Speaker 1: because of his dad, because he brought his dad to
Speaker 1: an Academy Award, And I think it's like the best
Speaker 1: performance in movies. Frankly, if you haven't seen that movie
Speaker 1: in a while and you you really look at that movie.
Speaker 1: It's magical of that performance. Like and I think his
Speaker 1: direction to his father was speak fast, honest, men, speak fast.
Speaker 1: I'd sit there with my friends whenever we were huddled
Speaker 1: around in the wee hours, and we since the party
Speaker 1: was over, and you knew that men were going to
Speaker 1: fall asleep, I turned them might say, what's three times
Speaker 1: thirty five dollars? But hundred and five thousand dollars? You
Speaker 1: fall asleep before I do, I'd say, Oh, guard around
Speaker 1: one of the greatest movies ever made. You directed one movie? Correct? Three?
Speaker 1: What was the first one you directed? It was called
Speaker 1: Bastard out of Carolina. What was it that propelled you
Speaker 1: to want to get behind the camera take on that job? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: I had always wanted to direct um and it so
Speaker 1: happened that the director fell out of the movie and
Speaker 1: I was offered it over a weekend literally, and my
Speaker 1: agent knew that I was interested in in directing something.
Speaker 1: We didn't quite know what it would be. And I've
Speaker 1: read the script and I really liked it. Did you
Speaker 1: enjoy the process? I loved it? You did? What about it? Um?
Speaker 1: For the first morning I went to my trailer and
Speaker 1: my heart was beating, and I was waiting and waiting
Speaker 1: and waiting for the knock on my door to call
Speaker 1: me to set. I didn't even understand that. Director, Director,
Speaker 1: you think that I have known a little better with
Speaker 1: John Houston as a father. But that's how excited and
Speaker 1: out of my mind I was. Um. The part I
Speaker 1: love best was working with the kids. Jena Malone was
Speaker 1: brilliant little actress and fun. Are you going to direct
Speaker 1: another movie? You think? You know if I found the
Speaker 1: right thing. Um, in a way, you know I'm lazy
Speaker 1: and that I wanted to find me. But things do.
Speaker 1: I think when synergy works, that's right, It's right, That's
Speaker 1: how it works. Thanks for doing this, Oh God, bless you,
Speaker 1: Thank you, actress icon Angelica Houston. She has written a
Speaker 1: captivating memoir in two parts, A Story Lately Told and
Speaker 1: Watched Me. The first half covers her childhood and teenage
Speaker 1: years in Ireland and England, while the second half is
Speaker 1: a romp through her day is on the modeling circuit
Speaker 1: and in Hollywood. Both are told with emotional depth and
Speaker 1: graceful humor, and I can't recommend them highly enough. I'm
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the thing,