In 1904, he married Rhea Gore (1882–1938), a sports editor for various publications, and gave up acting to work as a manager of electric power stations in Nevada, Missouri.

[citation needed] The couple's only child John Huston was born on August 5, 1906, in Nevada, Missouri, at which point Rhea gave up her work to concentrate on motherhood.

[citation needed] In 1909, with his marriage foundering, he appeared with an older actress named Bayonne Whipple (born Mina Rose, 1865–1937).

During summer vacations, John traveled separately with each of his parents  – with father Walter on vaudeville tours, and with his mother Rhea to horse races and other sports events.

His first major role was portraying the villainous Trampas in The Virginian (1929), a Western that costars Gary Cooper and Richard Arlen.

He starred as the title character in the 1934 Broadway adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's novel Dodsworth as well as in the play's film version released two years later.

For his role as Sam Dodsworth, Huston won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor and was Oscar nominated.

[14] Huston makes an uncredited appearance in the 1941 film noir classic The Maltese Falcon, portraying the ship's captain who is shot just before delivering the black bird to Sam Spade, played by Humphrey Bogart.

Other films of this period in which he appears are The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) as Mr. Scratch, Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), and Mission to Moscow (1943).

In the latter feature, a pro-Soviet World War II propaganda film, he plays United States Ambassador Joseph E. Davies.

Huston portrays the character Howard in the 1948 adventure drama The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which was also directed by his son John.