Celebrity Biographies
Tony Curtis
Although at first he was considered a ‘handsome’ without much talent, little by little he improved until he became a quite acceptable actor. His career is quite extensive, and includes mythical titles, especially Con faldas ya lo loco . Tony Curtis has died on September 30. He had been hospitalized since July for respiratory problems.
Bernard Schwartz -his real name- was born on June 3, 1925 in the popular New York neighborhood of the Bronx, into a family of Hungarian emigrants. His father had pioneered him as an amateur actor in his native country, and in New York he had established himself as a tailor.
Little given to studying, the boy spent all his time on the streets of New York, until he enlisted in the Navy during World War II. At the end of the conflict, he realized that he liked acting, and he enrolled in the Dramatic Workshop, a school in his city.
When he left he tried to make his way in the theater, and ended up representing a play called “The Golden Boy”. A Universal executive attended one of the functions who realized the immense physical attractiveness of the boy, for which he decided to offer him a permanent contract in the company, and renamed him Tony Curtis. Throughout the 1940s, the actor played a supporting role in memorable titles such as The Embrace of Death , Forbidden Address and Winchester 73 . He began to star in films set in the East, such as His Highness the Thief and Son of Ali Baba .
In love with the actress Janet Leigh , he married her in 1951, and they subsequently shared the screen in The Great Houdini , Black Shell , Holiday Without a Bride , Who Was This Girl? and the memorable The Vikings .
Turned into a great star, Tony Curtis did not stop accumulating successes such as Trapeze , Blackmail on Broadway , The murderer’s trail , Fugitives (1958) and Operation Pacific . But his most remembered role was that of a musician who escaped from the gangsters disguised as a woman, in an orchestra for ladies, together with the unbeatable Jack Lemmon , in With Skirts and Like Crazy , one of the great films of the master Billy Wilder . In his memoirs, Tony Curtis recounted that he had an affair with his co-star, Marilyn Monroe , and that she became pregnant, but lost the child.
In the early 1960s, Curtis divorced Janet Leigh -with whom he had the famous actress Jamie Lee Curtis- , and later he would join Christine Kaufman, with whom he had filmed Taras Bulba . He was also linked to actresses Leslie Allen and Andrea Savio, lawyer Lisa Deutsch, and young Jill Vanderberg.
In the 1960s, Curtis worked hard to find more complex roles for the leading men he had played up to then, and he gradually improved as an actor, in titles such as Spartacus , Last on the List , The Rogue Bachelorette , The Race of the Century or The Boston Strangler . In the 70s, his career declined, although he still shot some interesting titles, such as Lepke and El último tycoon , by Elia Kazan .