Anjelica Huston: What are men so angry about?

Chrissy Iley in The Telegraph:

The first time I met Huston, about 15 years ago, she wept into her white wine over her father’s death. John, who died in 1987, cast a long shadow over Anjelica, leading her to seek out other hugely charismatic men like Jack Nicholson. They were a couple for 17 years, and from the outside they seemed impossibly glamorous. They were part of the in crowd, travelling with the Rolling Stones, Andy Warhol, Marlon Brando, Harry Dean Stanton; theirs was life of models, motorbikes, and far flung film locations. But in reality, the relationship was tortuously on/off. When they eventually split for good, in 1989, she again cried in front of me and likened the break-up to a death in the family. She’d wake up and instantly wonder what his breakfast choices would be, and would he jump or dive into his pool? These were his little routines, and she was no longer a part of them.

After that we only spoke about him when I really pushed her. So it was somewhat shocking that the second volume of her memoirs, Watch Me, is in many ways a love letter to Jack. It’s as if in the process of writing the book she is no longer angry or even hurt, but for the first time understands him. “Jack is Jack,” she says with a wise smile. We are curled on to her comfy sofas in her new house in the Pacific Palisades, a suburban chic district of Los Angeles. It has a bohemian feel; beautiful art on the walls, a cat curled on the chair, and her dog – a Mexican hairless – at her side. She shared her previous home with the sculptor Robert Graham, to whom she was married from 1992 until his death in 2008. For a long time afterwards, Huston lived in his giant studio, Graham’s huge black and white charcoals and imposing figures surrounding her like ghosts. Why was she so kind to Jack? Did he read the book? “Yes,” she says enthusiastically. “I think he liked it. I hope he did.”

More here.