|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tony Curtis (born June 3, 1925) is an American film actor. Famous for his thick black wavy hair, handsome good looks, flashing long eyelashes and trademark New York accent, he was popular during the late 1950s and early 1960s, the actor's most enduring role has been in Some Like It Hot with Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe. He has appeared in over 100 films since 1949.
BiographyCurtis was born Bernard Schwartz, the son of Jewish Hungarian (from the city of Mátészalka, Szatmár) immigrants Emanuel and Helen Schwartz, in the Bronx, New York. His father was a tailor who had left his home country to find a new life in the United States. In the early days the family lived in the back of his tailor's shop, parents in one corner and Tony and his brothers Julius and Robert in another. Curtis has said of his mother in interview 'My mother was a very difficult mother. When I was a child she beat me up and was very aggressive, antagonistic.' His mother was later diagnosed with schizophrenia, a mental illness which also affected his brother Robert and led to him being institutionalised. When Curtis was 8 he and his younger brother Julius were put in an orphanage for a month because their parents could not afford to feed them. There were more hard times to come, when Curtis was 13 Julius was hit by a truck and he had to identify his body. He has said that he still keeps his cap and school books because that's all which is left of him. With the realities of real life all too harsh, a young Curtis sought refuge in the cinema.
Between 1942 and 1945 Curtis served in the U.S. Navy aboard a submarine tender. He witnessed the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay in September 1945 from a vantage point of 300 yards away.[1] After his service in the navy the young Curtis studied acting alongside Elaine Stritch, Walter Matthau and Rod Steiger. To use his own words, he got into the movies because he was 'the handsomest of the boys.' Arriving in Hollywood in 1948 aged 23 he was put under contract to Universal Pictures and had his name changed to Tony Curtis. The studio sent him to fencing and riding lessons but Curtis admits he was only interested in girls and money. Originally seen as just another pretty boy, he nonetheless proved he had great acting talent as well as impossible good looks with many great performances in outstanding films such as the scheming press agent Sidney Falco in Sweet Smell of Success, with Burt Lancaster, and an Oscar-nominated performance as a bigoted escaped convict chained to Sidney Poitier in The Defiant Ones. Tony Curtis was so popular as a screen hunk during the 1950s that Elvis Presley (after seeing it on screen) copied his ducktail (DA) hairstyle.
Since at least the early 1980s, Curtis has had a second career as a painter. His work can command more than £25000 a canvas now and it is on this he now focuses rather than movies. 'I still make movies but I'm not that interested any more. I paint all the time.' In 2007 his painting The Red Table will be on display in the Metropolitan Museum in Manhattan. Curtis has stated his disappointment at never being awarded an Oscar 'I've never felt that my profession has recognised me for my work.' In March 2006, Curtis received the Sony Ericsson Empire Lifetime Achievement Award. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and received France's honor, the Order of Arts and Letters, in 1995. RelationshipsTony Curtis has been married six times. His first (and most famous) wife was the actress Janet Leigh (1927–2004), to whom he was married for 11 years, and with whom he fathered actresses Jamie Lee Curtis and Kelly Curtis. He said of their relationship 'For a while, we were Hollywood's golden couple. I was very dedicated and devoted to Janet but then she was unfaithful to me. I was on top of my trade, but in her eyes that goldenness had started to wear off. I realised that whatever I was, I wasn't enough for Janet. That hurt me a lot and broke my heart.' He has also been married to:
His son, Nicholas (with Leslie Allen), died of a heroin overdose on July 2, 1994 at the age of 23. Of this, Curtis has said 'As a father you don't recover from that. There isn't a moment at night that I don't remember him.' About his sexuality Curtis stated : "I was 22 when I arrived in Hollywood in 1948. I had more action than Mount Vesuvius; ! I loved it too. I participated where I wanted to and didn't where I didn't. I've always been open about it." [1] His current wife is 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.' TriviaImage:The Persuaders.jpg Curtis and Roger Moore in The Persuaders! (1971/72).
Filmography
ReferencesFurther reading
|
Sites |
Searched sites for "Tony Curtis" |
|
No sites found. |
Sorry, no matching site records were found. |
Want your site listed here?
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
