John Huston and Ray Bradbury.

This excerpt from Ray Bradbury Unbound, Jonathan R. Eller’s new biography, follows Ray Bradbury’s complex relationship with director John Huston on the making of Moby Dick.

When everyone regrouped in London, tensions were still high between the two men. Casting was finalized during this period, but not before a large dinner at Huston’s private club with some of the production staff and other friends of Huston’s, including the silent film stars Bebe Daniels and her husband Ben Lyon, who had become television entertainers in the U.K. since leaving Hollywood. This group included Jeanie Sims; Lorrie Sherwood; Peter Viertel; Richard Brooks, who had been Huston’s cowriter on Key Largo in 1948; and Jack Clayton, who would go on to direct Room at the Top, The Innocents, and, eventually, Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. Continue reading →