Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest
popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in more than 100 films in roles covering
a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama. In his later years, Curtis
made numerous television appearances. Although his early film roles were partly
the result of his good looks, by the later half of the 1950s he became a notable and
strong screen presence. He began proving himself to be a fine dramatic actor, having the range
to act in numerous dramatic and comedy roles. In his earliest parts he acted in a string
of mediocre films, including swashbucklers, westerns, light comedies, sports films, and
a musical. However, by the time he starred in Houdini with his wife Janet Leigh, "his
first clear success," notes critic David Thomson, his acting had progressed immensely.
He won his first serious recognition as a skilled dramatic actor in Sweet Smell of Success
with co-star Burt Lancaster. The following year he was nominated for an Oscar for Best
Actor in another drama, The Defiant Ones. Curtis then gave what could arguably be called
his best performance: three interrelated roles in the comedy Some Like It Hot. Thomson called
it an "outrageous film," and a survey carried out by the American Film Institute voted it
the funniest American film ever made. The film co-starred Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe,
and was directed by Billy Wilder. That was followed by Blake Edwards’s comedy Operation
Petticoat with Cary Grant. They were both frantic comedies, and displayed his impeccable
comic timing. He often collaborated with Edwards on later films. In 1960, Curtis co-starred
in Spartacus, which became another major hit for him.
His stardom and film career declined considerably after the early 1960s. His most significant
dramatic part came in 1968 when he starred in the true-life drama The Boston Strangler,
which some consider his last major film role. The part reinforced his reputation as a serious
actor with his chilling portrayal of serial killer Albert DeSalvo.
Curtis was the father of actresses Jamie Lee Curtis and Kelly Curtis by his first wife,
actress Janet Leigh.
Early life Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz in Manhattan,
New York, one of three sons of Helen and Emanuel Schwartz. His parents were Hungarian Jewish
immigrants from Mátészalka, Hungary and Curtis didn't learn English until he was five
or six, postponing his schooling. His father was a tailor and the family lived in the back
of the shop—his parents in one corner and Curtis and his brothers Julius and Robert
in another. His mother once made an appearance as a participant on the television show You
Bet Your Life, hosted by Groucho Marx. Curtis said, "When I was a child, Mom beat me up
and was very aggressive and antagonistic." His mother was later diagnosed with schizophrenia.
His brother Robert was also institutionalized with the same mental illness.
When Curtis was eight, he and his brother Julius were placed in an orphanage for a month
because their parents could not afford to feed them. Four years later, Julius was struck
and killed by a truck. Curtis joined a neighborhood gang whose main crimes were playing hooky
from school and minor pilfering at the local dime store. When Curtis was 11, a friendly
neighbor saved him from what he felt would have led to a life of delinquency by sending
him to a Boy Scout camp, where he was able to work off his energy and settle down. He
attended Seward Park High School. At 16, he had his first small acting part in a school
stage play. Curtis enlisted in the United States Navy
after the attack on Pearl Harbor and war was declared. Inspired by Cary Grant's role in
Destination Tokyo and Tyrone Power's in Crash Dive, he joined the Pacific submarine force.
Curtis served aboard a submarine tender, the USS Proteus, until the end of the Second World
War. On September 2, 1945, Curtis witnessed the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay from his
ship's signal bridge about a mile away. Following his discharge from the Navy, Curtis
attended City College of New York on the G.I. Bill. He then studied acting at the The New
School in Greenwich Village under the influential German stage director Erwin Piscator. His
contemporaries included Elaine Stritch, Walter Matthau, Beatrice Arthur, and Rod Steiger.
While still at college, Curtis was discovered by Joyce Selznick, the notable talent agent,
casting director, and niece of film producer David O. Selznick. He later claimed it was
because he was the handsomest of the boys. In 1948, Curtis arrived in Hollywood, at age
23. When he was placed under contract at Universal Pictures, he changed his name from Bernard
Schwartz to Tony Curtis. The first name was from the novel Anthony Adverse and 'Curtis"
was from Kurtz. a surname in his mother's family. Although Universal Pictures taught
him fencing and riding, in keeping with the cinematic themes of the era, Curtis admitted
he was at first only interested in girls and money. Neither was he hopeful of his chances
of becoming a major star. Curtis's biggest fear was having to return home to the Bronx
as a failure:
I was a million-to-one shot, the least likely to succeed. I wasn't low man on the totem
pole, I was under the totem pole, in a sewer, tied to a sack.
Career
Curtis's uncredited screen debut came in Criss Cross playing a rumba dancer. In his second
film, City Across the River, he was credited as "Anthony Curtis". Later, as "Tony Curtis",
he cemented his reputation with breakthrough performances such as scheming press agent
Sidney Falco in Sweet Smell of Success with Burt Lancaster. Curtis gave an Oscar-nominated
performance as a bigoted white escaped convict chained to the black Sidney Poitier in The
Defiant Ones. He performed both screen comedy and drama,
and became one of the most sought after stars in Hollywood. Curtis's comedies include Some
Like It Hot, Sex and the Single Girl, and The Great Race. His dramas include the role
of slave Antoninus in Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus, co-starring Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier;
The Outsider, the true story of WW II veteran Ira Hayes; Taras Bulba, loosely based on Nikolai
Gogol's short novel, starring Yul Brynner in the title role and Tony Curtis as his son
Andrei; and The Boston Strangler, in which he played the self-confessed murderer of the
film's title, Albert DeSalvo. He was also part of the all-star ensemble in Elia Kazan's
1976 drama The Last Tycoon. Curtis was nominated for a Golden Globe for Supporting Actor for
his performance in Spartacus, alongside co-star Kirk Douglas.
Curtis appeared frequently on television; he co-starred with Roger Moore in the TV series
The Persuaders!. Later, he co-starred in McCoy and Vega$. In the early 1960s, he was a voice-over
guest star on The Flintstones as "Stony Curtis". Throughout his life, Curtis enjoyed painting
and, since the early 1980s, painted as a second career. His work commands more than $25,000
a canvas now. In the last years of his life, he concentrated on painting rather than movies.
A surrealist, Curtis claimed "Van Gogh, [Paul] Matisse, Picasso, Magritte" as influences.
"I still make movies but I'm not that interested in them any more. But I paint all the time."
In 2007, his painting The Red Table was on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
in New York City. His paintings can also be seen at the Tony Vanderploeg Gallery in Carmel,
California. Curtis spoke of his disappointment at never
being awarded an Oscar. In March 2006, Curtis received the Sony Ericsson Empire Lifetime
Achievement Award. He also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and received the Ordre
des Arts et des Lettres from France in 1995. Personal life
Marriages and children Curtis was married six times. His first wife
was actress Janet Leigh, to whom he was married from 1951 to 1962, and with whom he fathered
actresses Kelly and Jamie. "For a while, we were Hollywood's golden couple," he said.
"I was very dedicated and devoted to Janet, and on top of my trade, but in her eyes that
goldenness started to wear off. I realized that whatever I was, I wasn't enough for Janet.
That hurt me a lot and broke my heart." The studio he was under contract with, Universal-International,
generally stayed out of their stars' love lives. However, when they chose to get married,
studio executives spent three days trying to talk him out of it, telling him he would
be "poisoning himself at the box office." They threatened "banishment" back to the Bronx
and the end of his budding career. In response, Curtis and Leigh decided to defy the studio
heads and instead eloped and were married by a local judge in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Comedian and close friend Jerry Lewis came as a witness.
It was Leigh's third marriage. They divorced in 1962 and, in 1963, Curtis married Christine
Kaufmann, the 17-year-old German co-star of his latest film, Taras Bulba. He stated that
his marriage with Leigh had effectively ended "a year earlier". Curtis and Kaufmann had
two daughters, Alexandra and Allegra. They divorced in 1968. Kaufmann resumed her career,
which she had interrupted during her marriage. Curtis was also married to:
Leslie Allen; divorced, two sons: Nicholas Curtis and Benjamin Curtis
Andrea Savio; divorced Lisa Deutsch; divorced
Jill Vandenberg Curtis His last wife was 42 years his junior. They
met in a restaurant in 1993 and married in 1998. "The age gap doesn't bother us. We laugh
a lot. My body is functioning and everything is good. She's the sexiest woman I've ever
known. We don't think about time. I don't use Viagra either. There are 50 ways to please
your lover." His son Nicholas died of a heroin overdose
at the age of 23. On his son's death, Curtis remarked, "You never get over that. The death
of a child. No. Can't talk about it," and that it was "a terrible thing when a father
loses his son." According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
Curtis, who had a problem with alcoholism and drug abuse, went through the treatment
center of the Betty Ford Clinic in the mid-1980s, which was successful for him.
Philanthropy
Beginning in 1990, Curtis and his daughter Jamie Lee Curtis took a renewed interest in
their family's Hungarian Jewish heritage, and helped finance the rebuilding of the "Great
Synagogue" in Budapest, Hungary. The largest synagogue in Europe today, it was originally
built in 1859 and suffered damage during World War II. In 1998, he also founded the Emanuel
Foundation for Hungarian Culture, and served as honorary chairperson. The organization
works for the restoration and preservation of synagogues and 1300 Jewish cemeteries in
Hungary. He dedicated this to the 600,000 Jewish victims of the Holocaust in Hungary
and lands occupied by the Hungarian Army. He also helped promote Hungary's national
image in commercials.
Books and appearances In 1965, Tony Curtis was animated in an episode
of The Flintstones he also voiced his character. In 1994, a mural featuring his likeness, painted
by the artist George Sportelli, was unveiled on the Sunset Boulevard overpass of the Hollywood
Freeway Highway 101 in California. The mural was relocated to Hollywood Boulevard and Bronson
Avenue in September 2011. Also in 1994, the U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation
awarded its Lone Sailor Award for his naval service and his subsequent acting career.
In 2004, he was inducted into the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Hall of Fame. A street
is named after him in the Sun City Anthem development in Henderson, Nevada.
In 2008, he was featured in the documentary The Jill & Tony Curtis Story about his efforts
with his wife to rescue horses from slaughterhouses. In October 2008, Curtis's autobiography American
Prince: A Memoir, was published. In it, he describes his encounters with other Hollywood
legends of the time including Frank Sinatra and James Dean, as well as his hard-knock
childhood and path to success. It was followed by the publication of his next book, The Making
of Some Like it Hot: My Memories of Marilyn Monroe and the Classic American Movie. Curtis
shared his memories of the making of the movie, in particular about Marilyn Monroe, whose
antics and attitude on the set made everyone miserable.
On May 22, 2009, Curtis apologized to the BBC radio audience after he used three profanities
in a six-minute interview with BBC presenter William Crawley. The presenter also apologized
to the audience for Curtis's "Hollywood realism." Curtis explained that he thought the interview
was being taped, when it was in fact live. Later years and death
Curtis was a lifelong Democrat and attended the 1960 Democratic National Convention alongside
such liberal performers as Edward G. Robinson, Shelley Winters, Ralph Bellamy, and Lee Marvin.
Curtis developed a heavy cocaine addiction in 1974 while filming Lepke, at a time when
his stardom had declined considerably and he was being offered few film roles. In 1984,
Curtis was rushed to hospital suffering from advanced cirrhosis as a result of his alcoholism
and cocaine addiction. He then entered the Betty Ford Clinic and vowed to overcome his
various illnesses. He underwent heart bypass surgery in 1994, after suffering a heart attack.
Curtis nearly died when he contracted pneumonia in December 2006 and was in a coma for more
than a month. As a result, he used a wheelchair afterwards and could walk only short distances.
On July 8, 2010, Curtis, who suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, was
hospitalized in Las Vegas after suffering an asthma attack during a book-signing engagement
in Henderson, Nevada, where he lived. Curtis died at his Henderson home on September
29, 2010, of a cardiac arrest. He left behind 5 children and 7 grandchildren.ref His widow
Jill told the press that Curtis had suffered from various lung problems for years as a
result of cigarette smoking, although he had quit smoking about thirty years earlier. In
a release to the Associated Press, his daughter, actress Jamie Lee Curtis, stated:
"My father leaves behind a legacy of great performances in movies and in his paintings
and assemblages. He leaves behind children and their families who loved him and respected
him and a wife and in-laws who were devoted to him. He also leaves behind fans all over
the world. He will be greatly missed."
His remains were interred at Palm Memorial Park Cemetery in Henderson, Nevada, on October
4, 2010. His memorial service was attended by his daughters, Jamie Lee Curtis and Kelly
Curtis; Arnold Schwarzenegger; Rich Little; and Vera Goulet, Robert Goulet's widow. Investor
Kirk Kerkorian, actor Kirk Douglas and singer Phyllis McGuire were among the honorary pallbearers.
Filmography
See also References
Further reading Curtis, Tony; Barry Paris. Tony Curtis: The
Autobiography. New York: William Morrow & Company. ISBN 978-0-688-09759-2.
Ayres, Ian. Van Gogh's Ear: The Celebrity Edition. Paris: French Connection.
ISBN 978-2-914853-07-1. The book includes Tony Curtis's prose, poetry, and artwork.
Curtis, Tony; Peter Golenbock. Tony Curtis: American Prince: My Autobiography. New York:
Harmony Books. ISBN 978-0-307-40849-5. Curtis, Tony. Some Like it Hot: My Memories
of Marilyn Monroe and the Making of the Classic Movie. New York: John Wiley & Sons. p. 240.
ISBN 978-0-470-53721-3. Wise, James. Stars in Blue: Movie Actors in
America's Sea Services. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. ISBN 1557509379 OCLC 36824724
External links Tonycurtis.com
Remembering Tony Curtis [1] Bronx News, 2012 CBS news: Tony Curtis 1925-2010 on YouTube
video: 1.5 minutes Tony Curtis at the Internet Movie Database
Tony Curtis at the TCM Movie Database Biography and naval service from the California
Center for Military History website Tony Curtis' Famous Friends - slideshow by
Life magazine 2009 interview with Dodd Vickers for the Magic
Newswire John Patterson, "Some like it very hot", The
Guardian, 18 April 2008 Alison Jackson, Some tormented Hollywood souls
still like their gossip hot, Profile: Tony Curtis, Sunday Times, 20 April 2008
Documentary film, The Jill & Tony Curtis Story Photographs and literature
Tony Curtis: Life and Times - slideshow by Life magazine
The Telegraph obituary Interview by Michael Hainey for GQ Magazine