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"Beautiful things comfort; they bring a real clarity and ease. We have to continue to make our environments beautiful — it's sort of like a prayer. If you surround yourself with beautiful things, you have a better life -- one with more oxygen." Surrounding herself with beautiful things has been easy for Anjelica Huston, as she has modeled in the fashion world, won awards for her acting, authored books, and enjoyed relationships with family and loved ones. But she's also proven she can do much more than just show off her lovely looks or her acting chops. She has also produced and directed films that have gotten attention and enjoyed critical acclaim.

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Huston got her start in fashion modeling, and took small parts in some of her father's films as early as the late 1960s. At that time, she also started working in small roles in other movies. Since that time, she has been in A Walk with Love and Death (1969), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), Prizzi's Honor (1985), The Grifters (1990), The Addams Family (1991), and The Royal Tennenbaums (2001), among other films. Where did Huston come from and how did she get so popular? Here's what you need to know!

The California Girl

Anjelica Huston was born on July 8, 1951, in Santa Monica, California. Her parents are model and prima ballerina Enrica Soma, and actor and director John Huston. Actor Walter Huston, who was born in Canada, is Anjelica's paternal grandfather. Her father is an Irish citizen, and she spent a lot of her younger years in Ireland. She still considers it a second home. She has also lived in England, and she has several siblings, half-siblings, and adopted siblings. Her mother was killed in a car accident at the age of 39, and the family -- which was living in Ireland -- returned to America.

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During filming of A Walk with Love and Death in 1969, which was one of Huston's father's films and her first major role, she often clashed with her father on-set. She had wanted to play Juliet in another film but her father declined the part for her, leading to a rift between them. Huston was reluctant to appear in her father's movie, and her performance received poor reviews from critics. After the making of that movie and her mother's death, Huston stayed away from movies for seven years while she modeled for fashion designer Halston, among others.

In the early 1980s Huston decided to put more of her focus onto films, and she studied acting. This led to her being cast in The Postman Always Rings Twice in 1981. In 1985, Prizzi's Honor won her the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. This was a special occasion, as she became the first person in history to win an Oscar when they had a grandparent and a parent who had also won Oscars. Her father's final film as a director was The Dead (1987), in which Huston had the lead role. She was also Best Actress Oscar nominated for The Grifters in 1990.

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Huston was used to the celebrity life from an early age. "Some people had fathers who were bankers or farmers, my father made films, that's how I saw it. As for the movie stars, they were just around, some of them were friends, others weren't, it was all just a part of my everyday life," she has said. Her everyday life took off even more when she starred in the 1991 hit The Addams Family, and then reprised her role for 1993's Addams Family Values. She has also worked with director and film legend Woody Allen on two of his movies, both of which meant Best Supporting Actress nominations from BAFTA.

Exchanging Acting for Directing, Writing, and Activism

While Huston hasn't completely stopped acting, she has worked in fewer movies and television shows as she has gotten older. She was in the second and third seasons of Amazon's Transparent video series in 2015 and 2016, and made a brief appearance in 2019's John Wick: Chapter Three -- Parabellum. Instead of spending most of her time on screen, she has turned her focus to behind-the-scenes work.

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She started directing in 1996, with Bastard Out of California, and received another directing credit in 1999 for Agnes Browne. Her next directing credit came in 2005, with Riding the Bus with My Sister. She has been working on a film project based on William Butler Yeats and Maude Gonne. She publicly stated in 2010 that she was still developing the project, but hasn't commented on it since that time. Presumably, that project is still in the works. That mean fans will be seeing more from Huston in the future.

In addition to her directing roles and the occasional movie or TV show cameo, Huston has been focused on writing and activism. She has donated to the Irish Republican political party Sinn Féin, recorded public service announcements for PETA, and led a letter campaign to urge Ban Ki-moon -- the United Nations Secretary General -- to intervene personally in securing the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient from Burma.

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In her personal life, Huston has been involved with Jack Nicholson, having a relationship with him from 1973 through 1990. Theirs was an on-again, off-again relationship that Huston eventually left. In 1992 she married Robert Graham, a sculptor. They remained married until his death in 2008. Huston has no children.

Huston has authored two books. A Story Lately Told was published in 2014, and Watch Me. Both are memoirs. They were originally written as a 900-page book, but Huston's publisher urged her to split the story into two, smaller books. All indications are that Huston will continue to write, act, and direct well into the future. She has said "I don't see myself ever retiring, unless it's for something that I like better, and so far I like directing a lot but I don't see the necessity to retire from anything unless there's a really great alternative."