Tony Curtis, whose good looks made him a Hollywood star well before he became an accomplished actor in movies such as The Sweet Smell of Success and Some Like It Hot, died at his home in Nevada, ABC News reported on Thursday. He was 85.
Curtis, one of the biggest box-office stars of the 1950s and one of Hollywood’s busiest playboys during that time, died in bed at midnight in Henderson, Nevada, ABC said, citing his business manager and family spokesman, Preston Ahearn.
Curtis had a memorable role in the classic gladiator movie Spartacus in 1960 and received an Academy Award nomination for 1958’s The Defiant Ones but his career got off to a rough start. His first starring role was in The Prince Who Was a Thief in 1951 and critics were appalled as Curtis, playing an Arabian prince, proclaimed in a thick New York accent, “Yonduh lies de castle of de caliph, my fadder!” Still, Universal Pictures’ star-making machinery and teen fan magazines managed to make Curtis a celebrity and movie-goers loved his dark-haired sex appeal and impish grin.
Within a few years, Curtis had improved enough for Saturday Review magazine to call him “a rare phenomenon, an authentic screen personality who, through hard work, has made himself into an actor of considerable subtlety and some breadth.”
Two of his most enduring performances came in Some Like It Hot as he teamed with Jack Lemmon — playing cross-dressers opposite Marilyn Monroe — and The Sweet Smell of Success, in which he played a fawning press agent. —Reuters
His Oscar nomination came for the 1959 film The Defiant Ones, in which he played racist escaped con chained to Sidney Poitier. Other notable films included Houdini, Trapeze, Operation Petticoat, The Boston Strangler, The Vikings and The Great Imposter.
Curtis made more than 140 films, mixing comedies with dramas, but part of his life was plagued by poor movies and struggles with cocaine and alcohol. Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz in New York to poor Hungarian immigrants on June 3, 1925. He quit school to join the Navy in World War II, serving on a submarine tender, and pursued acting after his discharge. Curtis was known to be demanding at the height of his stardom and television producer Lew Gallo called him “an impetuous child.”
As fascinating to fans as his performances was Curtis’ private life. He was an inveterate womaniser whose girlfriends included Marilyn Monroe and Natalie Wood. He was married six times, starting with actress Janet Leigh in a union he later admitted was partially motivated by publicity value. After divorcing Leigh, he married Christine Kaufman, who was 17 when they met while filming Taras Bulba. Curtis was once quoted as saying, “I wouldn’t be seen dead with a woman old enough to be my wife.” His sixth wife, Jill Vandenberg, was 45 years younger than Curtis. Curtis’ children included actress Jamie Lee Curtis, who was estranged from him for much of his life, and he admitted he was a failure as a father. As his acting career waned, Curtis concentrated on painting and in 1989 he sold more than $1 million of his art in the first day of a Los Angeles exhibition.