So Tony Curtis has died, aged 85. Let us pause to remember him; he was one of the best things in mid-century Hollywood. In hommage I’m resisting the too-easy Some Like It Hot temptation, and the too-cheesy Spartacus temptation. This is great.
But I will say this: when I showed my kids Some Like It Hot, and Tony Curtis did his famous turn on the voice of Cary Grant (which still makes me laugh every time), and Jack Lemmon goes, “Nobody talked like that!”, and they got the joke, I knew I’d raised them right.
Tony Curtis was mad as a March hare, a self-proclaimed womanizer, drunk, dope-taker and depressive, and in his later years an artist manquée. (But blessed with a certain degree of self-awareness: “Now I’m a painter. That was another opportunity I was able to pursue, I’ve been painting all my life, now it’s become a second career because of my success in the movies.”)
He married six times, claimed that Marilyn Monroe had miscarried his baby, and got in trouble a couple of years ago for letting loose a four-letter rant against the Oscars on live BBC radio. Asked what the secret of his long life was, he replied: “The saliva of beautful women.”
As Bernie Schwartz, he served in the Navy (inspired by watching Cary Grant in Destination Tokyo) and then studied acting on the GI Bill – it was that generation of unprecedented social mobility, the joie de vivre of survival and amazing show-business careers fostered by post-war opportunity. I just don’t think they make them like this any more, and it’s because that world was unique to its own bubble of time. As Curtis also said: “I was born in and worked in a period that could be called enviable.” He spoke only Hungarian until he reached school age.
Known for his Bronx accent, he probably never uttered his great apocryphal line, “Yonda lies da castle of da caliph, my fodder.”
But I don’t care.
Editing in: a life in pictures, from the Guardian. You should also look at the landing page of his website, linked above. Tony Curtis was just impossibly good-looking.
Goodbye Tony! I remember as a young schoolgirl
everyone falling in love with you, in the 50′s. I didn’t, but loved James Stewart – I knew my place -
sorry you’ve gone though, you were so funny in some like it hot. A icon of your time- I think, personifying an age. so Thanks for the memory,
wish you were still here.
Carol
… impossibly good looking indeed. RIP.
Six wives and asthma makes 85 a pretty good innings really.
Our sympathy to the Baronesa Jamie-Lee Curtis Guest, whose Tyrolean Maid scene in Trading Places was as good as anything in SLIH, and her body alone deserved an Oscar for True Lies..
To be the daughter of Shower Scene From Psycho must be hard enough without Dad then writing on Ms Monroe. Bless you Jamie-Lee
So Long Tony . I was always happy to hear he was doing well as he had his share of problems . You will be missed…R.I.P
Say what you like about Spartacus, no film moment has ever moved me as much as “I’m Spartacus”. It’s the justification of his whole enterprise; in truth they could have ended the film there.
Ah Sheenagh, we only make fun of it because it’s so great. If it weren’t great no one would care any more. I agree: it’s a wondrous film moment.
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