Born in Kensington, London, she was the daughter of Duncan McNeill Houston and his wife Eilean (née Marlowe).
[1][2] Her father was a rubber broker, while her maternal grandfather was Thomas Marlowe, an early editor of the Daily Mail.
[4] During this early period, she was involved around 1952 with initiating the feature for which the magazine remains best known, the critics' decade poll for the 10 best films ever made.
[4][5] Houston did not create the feature, which she described in September 1962 as an "impossible but intriguing game", but she was responsible for its high profile.
[6][7] Houston became the editor of Sight & Sound, then a quarterly journal, in 1956 after Lambert departed for a career as a Hollywood screenwriter.