ON SECOND THOUGHT
“New York Was a Bit of a Monster”: Anjelica Huston Looks Back on Her Roaring Twenties
Anjelica Huston wears Jacket and Shirt McQueen. Earrings David Webb. Gold Ring L Frank.
In 1972, a decade before her acting career took off, Anjelica Huston sat down with her friend Berry Berenson for her first of four Interview covers. Yes, she was Hollywood royalty, but at 21, the model was living her best bohemian life, drifting between fashion shoots, late nights at the Chelsea Hotel, and the kind of trouble that made New York City a magnet for misfits and muses. Ahead of her latest role, in the John Wick spinoff Ballerina, she looks back on a time when anything felt possible.
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“There was, particularly down near the Chelsea Hotel, a lot of sketchy behavior. You could meet very interesting people, but also people who had, shall we say, a leg in the wrong place. It wasn’t a place where you’d take your grandmother.”
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“He wasn’t like the other fathers. He was larger than life, and quite extravagant as a person. He lived in extremes. And it was an ordinary fact of life that famous people would come to stay, so I was exposed to a certain amount of drama. People like Peter O’Toole and Marlon Brando.”
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“New York felt vast, especially at the time. It was very Gotham, and there was always an element of danger and an element of the unknown. London was quite docile next to it. New York was a bit of a monster.”
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“And I wasn’t bored. There was always something going on. There were always new people and some mystery around the corner. I was always engaged.”
Top and Pants Marni. Hat Gigi Burris. Gold Ring L Frank.
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“I wasn’t bored with modeling. I had a good time and I was always a bit of a show-off, so it suited me well. I had a lot of friends who were modeling as well, and we’d hang out together. It was very freeing.”
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“Dick I worked with before anyone. I think he liked my style and had a good gauge for what was going on. So he was always fun to work with. And then Bob was more serious, a bit more dangerous. Between the two of them, I think I got a good education.”
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“I was never a slave to fashion. I knew what I liked and I knew how I wanted to look, but I wasn’t enamored by it.”
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“I never made it my business to go after anybody. Much later on, I had a boyfriend who wanted me to pose for David Hockney, and I said, ‘Does David Hockney want to draw me?’ And he said, ‘That’s not really the point. The point is that I’m commissioning David Hockney to draw you.’ I remember being sort of appalled that David Hockney would have to be, not bribed, but paid in order to work with me. I thought, well, if David Hockney wants to work with me, then he’ll work with me. I’m not going to pay him.”
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“I don’t know that there were people who disapproved of me, but there were people who weren’t necessarily on my wavelength or who I wasn’t cut out to please. I liked the idea of being able to do anything I wanted, go anywhere I wanted, hang out with whoever I wanted. Freedom was a big thing for me. I always knew somewhere in my soul that I was right—that whatever I liked or whatever my instinct was, was right. My father instilled that idea in me.”
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“It wasn’t like I was grasping at straws. I was pretty in an unusual way and I could move. There wasn’t a big struggle with being noticed.”
Top Phoebe Philo from Neiman Marcus. Hat Gladys Tamez. Sunglasses L.A. Eyework.
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“I was always pretty casual about how I looked. And in those days, we weren’t too obsessed with it. We put on some makeup and went out. If you felt comfortable, that was a big indicator that you were on the right track.”
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“I think I had what I needed. I wasn’t necessarily with the boyfriend I wanted to be with, but I wasn’t hard-pressed to be with anyone that I wasn’t with.”
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“That was very tough. He was hard on me because he realized early on that I didn’t really want to do it, because I didn’t think the part was for me, and I wasn’t comfortable in my skin. You ask any actress if she’s right for something, she feels good. If she doesn’t, she feels bad. So I still don’t think it was my fault.”
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“I think I was on-and-off happy, like one is. I don’t know that I was overly satisfied with what was going on, but I wasn’t dissatisfied either. I was living pretty much day to day, saying and seeing and doing the things that made me happy, which was a lot of making other people happy.”
Sunglasses Maison Mariela x Gentle Monster.
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Hair: Victoria Tyson using Milbon.
Makeup: Sheri Knight using Yensa Beauty.
Nails: Erin Moffett using Essie at Art Department.
Tailor: Ivy Edgar.
Photography Assistants: Richard Knapp and Gerardo de la Paz.
Fashion Assistant: Catie Lane.
Post-production: Rick Allen.
