Jamie Lee Curtis is one of Hollywood's most remarkable actors, seamlessly moving between
genres like few performers can.
Now in her 60s, she's doing some of the most interesting work of her career.
You know her name, but here are all the things you didn't know about Jamie Lee Curtis.
Jamie Lee Curtis is Hollywood royalty in the truest sense, given that her parents are both
iconic movie stars: Tony Curtis, known for such classic flicks as "Some Like It Hot"
and "Sweet Smell of Success," and Janet Leigh, whose eclectic screen credits range from Alfred
Hitchcock's horror classic "Psycho" to the musical comedy "Bye Bye Birdie."
Curtis also has bragging rights as bona fide nobility as well, though not by birth.
Her husband, actor and director Christopher Guest, holds a hereditary British peerage.
As Guest explained in a 2016 interview with The Guardian,
"I'm a baron.
I'm Lord Haden-Guest.
And yes, that's a novelty.
Born into it by accident, obviously.
And then your dad dies and you're the next one."
As a result, Curtis holds the official title of Baroness Haden-Guest.
Thanks to Jamie Lee Curtis' early roles in such horror hits as "Halloween," "The Fog,"
"Prom Night," and others, she was named the all-time greatest "Scream Queen" at the 2020
MTV Movie & TV Awards: Greatest of All Time event.
Yet despite her horror pedigree, Curtis herself doesn't enjoy scary movies.
In 2021, while promoting the horror film "Halloween Kills," Curtis admitted she isn't a fan of
the genre, telling SFX Magazine,
"I wouldn't watch a horror movie if you paid me."
It wasn't the first time she shared that sentiment.
As she told NME in 2018 while promoting that year's "Halloween" movie, the reason for her
dislike of horror is that she scares way too easily.
As she hilariously put it,
"I mean, f--king 'Aladdin' scared me.
I'm not joking!
You know when Jafar becomes a dragon?
With his red eyes and stuff?
That s--t scared me."
Curtis suggested to SFX Magazine that her easy-to-terrify nature could actually be the
secret to her horror success.
However, she's also come to terms with playing Laurie Strode in the "Halloween" franchise,
seeing it as more blessing than curse.
She predicted to Variety in 2018 that her obituary will probably read: "'Halloween'
Actress Dead."
When young Jamie Lee Curtis was pondering her future career plans, following in the
footsteps of her famous parents to become an actor wasn't actually at the top of her
list.
One reason for that, she revealed to The New Yorker in a 2019 interview, was that her teeth
had a grayish hue, due to her mother taking tetracycline during her pregnancy.
She thought that the pigmentation would keep her from ever pursuing a career on screen,
so her initial plan was to pursue a career in law enforcement.
She recalled,
"I was going to be a police officer, because I thought I would be good and you didn't need
a lot of schooling for it."
While her dreams of becoming a cop ultimately took a back seat to her acting ambitions,
she did get to experience life as a cop — vicariously, at least — when she was cast as a rookie
NYPD officer in the 1990 drama "Blue Steel."
"You're on the right side of the law.
How does it feel?"
"It feels like I need a cigarette."
In addition to her multitude of roles in film and television, Jamie Lee Curtis is also the
author of children's books.
Her gig writing children's books is no passing fancy; since writing her first book in 1998
— "Today I Feel Silly, & Other Moods That Make My Day" — she's since written several
others.
Given her lack of academic ability during her school days, nobody is more surprised
by her role as a bestselling author than Curtis herself.
As she joked to USA Today in 2016,
"I never thought I'd write a book in my life.
I got 840 on my SATs — combined."
Curtis theorized in an interview with Romper that the secret to her success as an author
is her ability to entertain children and their parents simultaneously, albeit on different
levels.
"All throughout my books basically, there's a line of music for children, colors, silly
things happening, and a line for the adults.
That's how my books have been successful."
In December 2020, Jamie Lee Curtis celebrated 36 years of marriage with Christopher Guest,
commemorating the occasion with a sweet Instagram post.
Writing for Oprah Winfrey's website, Curtis recalled first laying eyes on her future husband
in the pages of Rolling Stone, relating,
"I'd never seen him before, but I pointed at him.
'I'm going to marry that man,' I said to my friend."
Guest was then earning accolades for his brilliant performance as dim-witted guitarist Nigel
Tufnel in Rob Reiner's groundbreaking mockumentary "This Is Spinal Tap."
She called his agent and requested that Guest give her a call, but he never did.
Later, Curtis and Guest saw each other when they happened to be in the same restaurant;
he called her the next day.
Within a few weeks they'd "fallen in love."
Speaking with The Guardian, Guest confirmed that the picture that sealed the deal with
his future missus was one of his actual self and not one of himself in costume as his "Spinal
Tap" alter ego.
He said,
"There were pictures in Rolling Stone magazine in 1984.
One of me as Nigel Tufnel and one of me as me.
And that was the one where she said to her friend, 'I'm going to marry that guy.'
So no, it was not Nigel.
That would be disturbing.
I mean, it's crazy enough as it is."
Writing for "O, The Oprah Magazine" in 2004, Jamie Lee Curtis talked about how she and
her husband Christopher Guest have enjoyed a "wonderful, complicated, imperfect life"
and "a very real marriage."
In 2015, after she and Guest had celebrated their 31st anniversary, she shared her secret
to a successful marriage with Today, declaring,
"Don't get divorced.
It's a fascinating thing.
I could write a book on marriage called 'Don't Leave.'"
Curtis' parents went through a bitter divorce of their own when she was just a toddler.
"My parents hated each other my whole life.
I was raised in a house of hatred."
Substance abuse was something that Jamie Lee Curtis grew up around.
Her brother Nicholas suffered a fatal heroin overdose when he was just 21.
Meanwhile, her father, actor Tony Curtis, had his own issues with addiction.
She revealed to Variety in 2019,
"I did cocaine and freebased once with my dad.
[...] That was the only time I did that, and I did that with him."
Curtis became addicted to opiates for more than ten years after a routine cosmetic surgery
resulted in a prescription for Vicodin.
When she eventually came to realize she had a dependency, she confronted it head on and
has been sober ever since.
She's a big believer in recovery meetings, telling Variety she's attended them all over
the world, wherever she happens to be working.
If she can't find a meeting, she simply hosts her own on the set.
One of Jamie Lee Curtis' geekier traits is her affection for video games, and it's something
she's made no secret of over the years.
"I play Street Fighter more than you will ever know."
She has also been known to cosplay as her favorite characters.
Back in 2015, for example, she took to Twitter to share a photo of herself, husband Christopher
Guest, and their children, all costumed as characters from the classic arcade game "Street
Fighter."
Later that same year, she tweeted a pic of herself wearing a "World of Warcraft" monster
mask for an incognito appearance at BlizzCon.
At the premiere of the "Warcraft" movie the following year, she donned a whole new cosplay
look, this time as an "Orc shaman" from "World of Warcraft."
Curtis' interest in video games collided with her movie career in 2021 when she was cast
in "Borderlands," director Eli Roth's upcoming film adaptation of the popular game series.
A few months after that announcement, Curtis shared a photo on Instagram, taken from the
set, of her character in the film, Dr. Patricia Tannis, describing the doc as
"INSANE (LY) SMART with an emphasis on the first part!"
For several years, Jamie Lee Curtis served as the spokeswoman for Activia yogurt, appearing
in numerous television commercials extolling the product's purported ability to get sluggish
bowels moving -- a pitch that was spoofed by Kristen Wiig in a series of "Saturday Night
Live" parodies.
"What can I say?
People need to poop!"
"People need to poop."
What viewers of those commercials likely didn't realize is the important role they served
in her family life.
During an appearance on "The Kingcast" podcast, Curtis revealed that she had deliberately
slowed down her movie career during that period in order to stay close to home so she wouldn't
have to be away from her husband and children for extended periods of time.
Saying she makes no excuses about it, she said,
"I've been doing commercials for a very, very, very long time partially so I can ameliorate
all of that distance from my family.
It allowed me to earn money and stay home."
Or, as she bluntly put it:
"It's the reason that I sold yogurt that makes you s--t for seven years."
In addition to her status as an actor, author, and video game aficionado, Jamie Lee Curtis
is also an inventor.
Her specialty: diapers.
And not your garden-variety kind, either.
In the late 1980s, Curtis invented and patented a disposable diaper that includes a sealed-but-openable
waterproof pocket on the outside containing wipes for cleanup — a one-stop shop for
busy parents.
As she explained during an appearance on NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," she dubbed her
invention "Dipe and Wipes."
"You peel off the tape, reach in, pull out the wipes, undo the diaper, check out whatever's
going on."
Interestingly enough, that wasn't Curtis' sole exploration into the vagaries of diaper
technology.
She actually patented another diaper design in 2016 that takes the concept even further.
According to the patent, Curtis devised
"A unitary, disposable diaper possessing integrated soilage-management structure including a portion
structured to form a selectively deployable [...] soilage-impervious disposal container."
In other words, Jamie Lee Curtis has probably spent more time thinking about what to do
with baby poop than you ever have -- or would want to.
One of Jamie Lee Curtis' best friends is fellow actor Sigourney Weaver, something that became
apparent when she interviewed Weaver for Interview magazine.
While Curtis pointed out that she and Weaver — whom she affectionately refers to as "Siggy"
— are "so diametrically different," Weaver noted they also "have much in common."
However, Curtis explained that the two have their differences, saying,
"You are a New Yorker, you are an intellectual, you went to drama school.
And I am the vulgarian from California."
Yet despite those superficial differences, Curtis explained, there are some core similarities
that bond them, including being "women of a similar age" who are both in long-term marriages.
They've both experienced the ups and downs of show business, or, as Curtis jokingly called
it, "'show-off' business."
Another common denominator is that both Curtis and Weaver have worked with director James
Cameron — Curtis in "True Lies," and Weaver in the "Alien" movies and "Avatar."
They are also just a little bit competitive with each other, something the women played
up when they co-starred as rivals in the 2010 comedy "You Again."
"Gail?"
"Ramona!"
"How long has it been?"
"Well, don't tell, or I'll have to strangle you."
While promoting the movie, Curtis joked to WNBC,
"I'm in no competition with Ms. Weaver.
And I don't throw my '5 million books sold' number at her at all."
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