Tony Curtis biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Actor. Tony Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz on June 3, 1925, to Hungarian Jewish immigrants Helen and Emanuel Schwartz. Curtis' father owned a tailor shop, and he and his family lived behind the business in a cramped apartment. His parents slept in one room, and Curtis shared the other with his two brothers, Julius and Robert. Curtis' mother suffered from schizophrenia, and often beat the boys.

In 1933, during the economic struggles of the Great Depression, Curtis' parents could no longer care for the boys financially. Tony and Julius were placed in a state institution, where the boys were frequently involved in conflicts with anti-Semitic youngsters who often threw stones and started fistfights with the brothers. In 1938, Julius was hit by a truck and killed. He was 12 years old.

Shaken by the loss, Tony was determined to make a better life for himself and began attending Seward Park High School on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. After graduation, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, serving in World War II aboard the submarine U.S.S. Proteus. Following his honorable discharge from the military, Curtis began acting lessons in New York at the New School for Social Research. Among his classmates was fellow Seward Park alumnus Walter Matthau.

Career Highlights

Curtis' boyish good looks helped him to land a contract with Universal Pictures in 1948. During this time, he settled on the name Anthony Curtis, and began a series of small movie roles including Criss Cross (1949), Francis (1950) and No Room for the Groom (1952). Thanks partly to his high profile marriage to Hollywood beauty Janet Leigh in 1951, Curtis went on to star in a string of successful roles in the late 1950s and 1960s, including Houdini (1953), in which Leigh was his co-star. Other films include the military comedy Operation Petticoat (1959); the famed romantic comedy Some Like It Hot, with co-star Marilyn Monroe; and the Stanley Kubrick epic Spartacus (1960).

Personal Life

But the star's career all but collapsed in 1962 when he divorced Leigh after he had an affair with 17-year-old German actress Christine Kaufmann. By then, the couple had two children: Jamie Lee and Kelly. Tony and Kaufmann married in 1963, but were divorced by 1968. Shortly after, he married 23-year-old model Leslie Allen. Curtis would eventually find himself in six different marriages, and engaged in several high profile romances with icons such as Marilyn Monroe and Natalie Wood.

By the 1970s, Curtis was struggling with an addiction to alcohol and drugs. He appeared in a variety of low-profile films and TV shows, but eventually headed to rehab in 1982 and reinvented himself as a fine art painter. He also wrote published two autobiographies during this time: Tony Curtis: The Autobiography (1994) and American Prince: A Memoir. In 2002, he toured in a musical adaptation of Some Like It Hot. His final film was in David & Fatima (2008). By then he was struggling with frequent health issues, which included heart bypass surgery in 1994 and a recurring battle with obstructive pulmonary disease.

Curtis died on September 30, 2010, of cardiac arrest in his Las Vegas home. He was 85 years old. He is survived by sixth wife Jill VandenBerg; Kelly Lee Curtis and Jamie Lee Curtis, his two daughters with Janet Leigh; Alexandra Curtis and Allegra Curtis, his two daughters with Christine Kaufmann; and a son, Benjamin Curtis, with Leslie Allen.

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