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Tony Curtis (born June 3, 1925) is an American film actor.

Biography

Curtis 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. Famous for his dark good looks, flashing long eyelashes and trademark New York accent, 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.

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.

Curtis has also appeared frequently on television; he co-starred with Roger Moore in the TV series The Persuaders!. He later starred in McCoy and Vega$. He made his screen debut uncredited in Criss Cross playing a rhumba dancer. He also did the voice of "Stony Curtis" as a guest star on The Flintstones.

Since at least the early 1980s, Curtis has had a second career as a painter.

Curtis has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and received France's honor, the Order of Arts and Letters, in 1995.

Relationships

Tony 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 has also been married to:

• Jill Vandenberg Curtis (November 6, 1998—)
• Lisa Deutsch (February 28, 1993–1994); divorced
• Andrea Savio (1984–1992); divorced
• Leslie Allen (April 20, 1968–1982); divorced, two children
• Christine Kaufmann (February 8, 1963–1967); divorced, two children

About his sexuality Curtis stated : ""I was 22 when I arrived in Hollywood in 1948. I had more action than Mount Vesuvius; men, women, animals! 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]

Trivia

• Curtis is 5'9" (1.75m).

• Tony Curtis currently resides in Henderson, Nevada.

• Audie Murphy suggested Curtis portray him in his biopic To Hell and Back.

• Served in the U.S. Navy 1942-1945 aboard a submarine tender. Witnessed the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay, September 1945, from a vantage point 300 yards away.

• Despite Lew Grade suggesting otherwise in his biography Still Dancing, Curtis is good friends with Roger Moore.

• Curtis and actress-activist Bo Derek met in Washington, DC in support of the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act in May 2004.

• In March 2006 Curtis received the Sony Ericsson Empire Lifetime Achievement Award.

• Has appeared in tourism advertisements for his ancestral homeland Hungary.

• Has stated that his favorite movie star and co-star was Cary Grant.

• Made "Top 10 stars of the year", 1961 and 1962.

• In late 2005, Curtis voiced criticism of the film Brokeback Mountain, stating that he had no intention of seeing it. Many found this ironic, considering Curtis' participation in the documentary The Celluloid Closet, as well as admitting to his own gay dalliances in a 2004 interview with Attitude Magazine. In his 80th birthday interview, Curtis expressed with some bitterness his memory of being assumed to be gay by everyone who saw him in his early Hollywood days, especially after Spartacus.

Filmography

1. Criss Cross (1949)
2. Bedrock Across the River (1949)
3. The Lady Gambles (1949)
4. Take One False Step (1949) (scenes deleted)
5. Johnny Stool Pigeon (1949)
6. How to Smuggle a Hernia Across the Border (1949) (short subject)
7. Woman in Hiding (1950)
8. Francis (1950)
9. I Was a Shoplifter (1950)
10. Sierra (1950)
11. Winchester '73 (1950)
12. Kansas Raiders (1950)
13. The Prince Who Was a Thief (1951)
14. Meet Danny Wilson (1952) (cameo)
15. Flesh and Fury (1952)
16. No Room for the Groom (1952)
17. Son of Ali Baba (1952)
18. Houdini (1953)
19. All-American (1953)
20. Forbidden (1953)
21. Beachrock (1954)
22. Johnny Dark (1954)
23. The Black Shield of Falworth (1954)
24. Six Bridges to Cross (1955)
25. So This Is Paris (1955)
26. The Purple Mask (1955)
27. The Rawhide Years (1955)
28. The Square Jungle (1955)
29. Trapeze (1956)
30. Mister Cory (1957)
31. Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
32. The Midnight Story (1957)
33. The Vikings (1958)
34. Kings Go Forth (1958)
35. The Defiant Ones (1958)
36. The Perfect Furlough (1958)
37. Some Like It Hot (1959)
38. Operation Petticoat (1959)
39. Who Was That Lady? (1960)
40. The Rat Race (1960)
41. Spartacus (1960)
42. Pepe (1960) (cameo)
43. The Great Impostor (1961)
44. The Outsider (1961)
45. Taras Bulba (1962)
46. 40 Pounds of Trouble (1962)
47. The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) (cameo)
48. Captain Newman, M.D. (1963)
49. Paris, When It Sizzles (1964) (cameo)
50. Wild and Wonderful (1964)
51. Goodbye Charlie (1964)
52. Sex and the Single Girl (1964)
53. The Great Race (1965)
54. Boeing Boeing (1965)
55. Chamber of Horrors (1966) (cameo)
56. Not with My Wife, You Don't! (1966)
57. Arrivederci, Baby! (1966)
58. Don't Make Waves (1967)
59. On My Way to the Crusades, I Met a Girl Who... (1968)
60. Rosemary's Baby (1968) (voice)
61. The Boston Strangler (1968)
62. Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies (1969)
63. You Can't Win 'Em All (1970)
64. Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came? (1970)
65. Mission: Monte Carlo (1974)
66. Lepke (1975)
67. London Conspiracy (1976)
68. The Last Tycoon (1976)
69. Casanova & Co. (1977)
70. Sextette (1978)
71. The Manitou (1978)
72. The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978)
73. Double Take (1979)
74. Title Shot (1979)
75. Little Miss Marker (1980)
76. It Rained All Night the Day I Left (1980)
77. The Mirror Crack'd (1980)
78. Othello, the Black Commando (1982)
79. Where Is Parsifal? (1983)
80. BrainWaves (1983)
81. The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal (1985) (documentary)
82. Club Life (1985)
83. Insignificance (1985)
84. The Last of Philip Banter (1986)
85. Balboa (1986)
86. The Passenger - Welcome to Germany (1988)
87. Lobster Man from Mars (1989)
88. Midnight (1989)
89. Walter & Carlo In America (1989)
90. Prime Target (1991)
91. Center of the Web (1992)
92. Hugh Hefner: Once Upon a Time (1992) (documentary)
93. Naked in New York (1993)
94. The Mummy Lives (1993)
95. A Century of Cinema (1994) (documentary)
96. The Immortals (1995)
97. The Celluloid Closet (1995) (documentary)
98. Hardball (1997)
99. Brittle Glory (1997)
100. Alien X Factor (1997)
101. Stargames (1998)
102. Louis & Frank (1998)
103. Play It to the Bone (1999) (cameo)
104. Reflections of Evil (2002) (narrator)

Further reading

• Tony Curtis and Barry Paris, Tony Curtis: The Autobiography, New York: William Morris, 1993

External links

• His official website, a "Virtual Art Gallery"
• Biography and Naval service from the California Center for Military History website

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