It's easy to forget that before she was the queen of Wes Anderson chic, Smash's master martini thrower, and Morticia Addams that Anjelica Huston was a model and the ingenue daughter of directing giant John Huston.
Her new memoir, A Story Told Lately (Scribner), serves as a reminder, tracing her globetrotting younger years. Here, some choice recollections.
1. When Richard Avedon, a friend of Huston's parents, first shot her, he told her mother her shoulders were too big for her to be a model. He'd later photograph her for Vogue.
2. John Steinbeck, another family friend, visited the Hustons in Ireland for Christmas one year and was appointed the role of Santa Claus for Anjelica and her brother, Tony.
3. Huston became Marianne Faithfull's understudy after losing the role of Ophelia to her for a production of Hamlet. Later, after Huston's mother's fatal car crash, Faithfull gave her a "long red fox coat" and drove her to the pharmacy.
4. In a fiery display of love, Huston once slit her wrist in front of her much older lover, lensman Bob Richardson.
5. She was delighted when people told her she looked like Cher.
