John Huston
The Look of Eagles
A phrase often ascribed to a proud and majestic horse,“The Look of Eagles” in this photo surely applies to both horse and rider.
This photo of Kirk Douglas in hunting attire is thought to be a publicity still for The List of Adrian Messenger. The film was directed by John Huston, father of Anjelica Huston, whose memoir of growing up at St. Clerans, the family home in Ireland, is reviewed below.
John Huston was a Joint-Master of the Galway Blazers, and he brought many screen stars to St. Clerans, including Kirk Douglas. The foxhunting scenes for The List of Adrian Messenger, in which George C. Scott also appeared, were filmed in Ireland. Scott, along with other Hollywood stars, hunted with the West Hills Hunt in California. John Huston was also a member of West Hills. Whether or not Kirk Douglas hunted with West Hills, we don’t know.
A Story Lately Told
A Story Lately Told: Coming of Age in Ireland, London and New York, Anjelica Huston, Scribner, 2013, 253 pp, ill., $25.00Anjelica Huston seemed to have it all—a famous and talented father whose wealth gave her an idyllic childhood in Ireland and whose many contacts exposed her to some of the world’s most exciting people; a beautiful mother; success as a model; fox hunting with the Galway Blazers. But her memoir, A Story Lately Told: Coming of Age in Ireland, London and New York, reveals the dark detours her life took after her parents separated and her thirty-nine-year-old mother was killed in a car crash.
Huston eventually followed her father, renowned director John Huston (Joint-MFH of the Galway Blazers), and her grandfather, actor Walter Huston, in finding success as an actress and a director. The American actress became the first third generation winner of an Academy Award, for her performance in the 1985 film, Prizzi's Honor.
But acting was not a path she originally wanted to take, she reveals in this memoir. She adored her father, yet feared him, too, resisting his domineering attempts to push her into becoming an actress. Instead, she opted for a modeling career, knowing it would displease him. And she fell into a relationship at age eighteen with a brilliant but troubled fashion photographer twenty-four years her senior.
The Galway Blazers Puppies Enter Glorious Tradition
MFHs Michael Dempsey and Vincent Shields
The Galway Blazers Puppy Show drew a large attendance at the Kennels in Craughwell, County Galway, Ireland.
Michael Dempsey, internationally known Joint-Master and former huntsman of the Galway Blazers for the last 32 seasons, has maintained some Old English bloodlines in his pack. He likes a light hound that can bank the Galway walls and leave the stones in place. Vincent Shields was attending his first puppy show as a newly appointed Blazers Joint-Master, while retaining his current Mastership of both the East Galway Foxhounds and the Roscommon Harriers.
One is ever mindful of the great tradition of hound breeding at the Blazers’ kennels, particularly when thinking of previous huntsmen like Captain Brian Fanshawe, Paddy Pickersgill, and above all American-born Isaac Bell who hunted the pack from 1903 to 1908, and who made such a lasting contribution to what is now known as the modern English foxhound.
