Reaching the Stars

Author Larry Grobel--who’s been working three years on a massive bio on John Huston and family--tells us he’s tapped into a veritable mother lode of reminiscence from the late actor-director’s family and closest friends. And it’s not all flattering.

“John knew I was writing a book--warts and all,” said Grobel, who met Huston in 1985 when he interviewed Huston for Playboy. “I think he trusted me to be fair.”

When Grobel started researching “The Hustons”--which focuses on John but spans back to 1881 and includes the family’s famous patriarch, Walter--John wrote a letter asking his intimates to cooperate with Grobel, “no holds barred.” With that letter, as well as John’s personal phone books, Grobel connected with the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Roman Polanski, Ava Gardner, Paul Newman, Olivia de Havilland, Robert Mitchum, three of Huston’s ex-wives (the other two are dead)--and Nancy Reagan.

Some 300 sources provided “one incredible story after another,” claimed Grobel. Some highlights:

Jockey Billy Pearson recalled when he and John smuggled pre-Columbian artifacts into the United States in coffins or fishing boats. Once, John distracted Audie Murphy for hours in a poker game while Pearson and another pilot “borrowed” Murphy’s private plane to deliver illicit artifacts across the border to Texas, returning before the game was over.

Director Richard Brooks told of John in a cruel mood in a London restaurant, where he went around the table one-by-one, tearing into Truman Capote, Ray Bradbury, Gina Lollobrigida, Humphrey Bogart and his wife, Lauren Bacall, reducing each to tears. (“He had worked with all these people and knew what buttons to press,” Grobel said.)

One day at the casinos, John bet $600 on a game of baccarat, winning nine consecutive times--letting his money ride until accumulating more than $300,000. On the 10th round he lost it all . . . and walked away unfazed.

For the first time, John’s wives and mistresses talk intimately of their love/hate relationship with the notorious womanizer.

“The Hustons” is due out next year from Charles Scribner’s Sons. Grobel has written 1,600 pages--and is only up to the 1960s.