The first volume of Anjelica Huston’s memoir, published last year, was notable for being a celebrity memoir with barely any celebrity in it. A Story Lately Told dealt mostly with her childhood in rural Ireland, riding horses on her film director father’s country estate and dining at the Shelbourne hotel in Dublin, where the most a reader could hope for in terms of revelation was a detailed insight into the menu. “Prawns were my favourite”, we were reliably informed, while her brother“always ordered the vichyssoise, shrimp scampi and lemon sorbet for dessert”.

It was a well-written book, in an understated, matter-of-fact kind of way, and got some nice reviews. But we were all secretly waiting for volume two and the appearance of Jack Nicholson, Huston’s on-off lover for 17 years.

And now – rejoice! – here it is. Watch Me is jam-packed with celebrities. In fact, it’s nigh-on impossible to get to the end of a sentence without having tripped over a roster of A-list names. One minute, we’re being introduced to Ava Gardner, smiling like a million-dollar diva while “uttering a stream of profanities” at the paparazzi. The next, we’re being confronted by a 12-year-old Gwyneth Paltrow at a party in Aspen. Ryan O’Neal pops up and kisses Huston for “six hours straight” on a dining room table in Los Angeles. Jack Nicholson writes her poems and calls her “Toots”. Marlon Brando tells her she’s a queen. David Bailey photographs her and tries to persuade her to marry him. Joni Mitchell writes a song about a party they were both at.

Huston floats through it all remarkably unfazed. When she finds Roman Polanski entertaining a 13-year-old girl in Nicholson’s house, she thinks “nothing of it”, even though Polanski would later admit to unlawful sexual intercourse and flee the country hours before he was due to be sentenced.

The whole thing is a breathless whirlwind of seediness, glamour, stitched-together silk scarves and magic mushrooms. This book picks up where the first one left off: Huston is living in California and recovering from a difficult, sometimes violent relationship with the photographer Bob Richardson. She is making a living as a model, but feels her existence is aimless and harbours a secret desire to act. And yet she is anxious about emerging from the shadow of her intimidatingly talented father, John, whose numerous credits include The African Queen and The Misfits.

It is only when she finds herself at a party (another one) with the film and theatre director Tony Richardson that her life changes course. Richardson summons her to a low divan on one side of the room and tells her she has “‘so much talent and so little to show for it. You’re never going to do anything with your life.’”

This is all the propulsion Huston needs. As she recalls: “Inside, I was thinking, ‘Watch me.’”

Soon, Huston is hoovering up parts and nominations, winning an Academy award in 1986 for best supporting actress for Prizzi’s Honor (a film directed by her father and starring Nicholson). She collects the statuette in a dress made from “kelly-green silk jersey” and starts talking earnestly about her preparation for roles: “There is the moment when you must trust your preparation and allow your imagination to take over in order for a character to exist. In a way, it’s like conjuring up ghosts…”

Luckily, Huston doesn’t dwell too much on the actor’s art. Most of the time, she is a sympathetic narrator. She breezes through the pages with an acute observer’s eye, always giving the impression that things happen by chance rather than her own design. er descriptions of people are astute. A “sleek and burnished” Eddie Murphy is shown insisting he must be the last to arrive on set in order to make an entrance. There is a walk-on part for the young Jade Jagger in London in the late 70s. When asked what she would like to drink, Jagger replies: “Fresh strawberry juice.”

“I thought that was pretty good for a seven-year-old in November in England,” Huston remarks drily.

And there’s all the Nicholson stuff, too, which is affectionately rendered, right up until the point he left her in 1990 for the actress Rebecca Broussard, with whom he was expecting a child. But the real love story in this memoir is with the sculptor Bob Graham, whom Huston married in 1992. Graham died 16 years later of a rare blood disease with his wife by his side.

Huston’s recounting of his death is deeply poignant. It is done without mawkishness or sentimentality and is all the more touching for it.

“In its way, it was as ceremonial as a wedding,” she writes. “Bob’s head resting on a white cotton pillow, his hair like mother-of-pearl, his eyebrows arched above closed eyelids, his eyelashes long and dark. When the nurse removed his oxygen mask, he wore no expression at all.”

Watch Me is full of glitz and glamour. But beneath the sequins and the kelly-green silk jersey beats a real and honest heart.

Watch Me is published by Simon and Schuster (£20). Click here to buy it for £16