Reports are coming in that screen legend Tony Curtis has died, aged 85. Reps for his daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis, confirmed the news to ET, although no further details are currently available. However the actor had been in poor health for several years.
Born Bernard Schwartz to Hungarian Jewish parents in New York, Curtis had a tough upbringing, with an aggressive mother (who was later diagnosed with schizophrenia), his father getting run over and killed by a truck, and he and his brother even being placed briefly in an orphanage when his family could no longer feed them. However he survived all that and served in the Navy during World War II. After witnessing the surrender of the Japanese at Tokyo Bay, Curtis returned to the US to become an actor.
He arrived in Hollywood in 1948 and was placed under contract by Universal. Initially he was given small matinee idol type roles, but he had his real breathrough playing against type as the scheming press agent Sidney Falco in The Sweet Smell Of Success in 1957. Major roles followed in the next few years, including The Vikings, The Defiant Ones (for which he scored an Oscar nomination), Some Like It Hot, Operation Petticoat and Spartacus. While his career gradually declined through the 60s and 70s, he was still a regular on movie and TV screens, and in later years became well known for his anecdotes about Hollywood’s Golden Age, and particularly his exploits with women (he was married six time, most famously to Janet Leigh – producing Jamie Lee Curtis during that time), including a claimed liaison with Marilyn Monroe.
Curtis worked steadily until the late 90s, when he went into semi-retirement. In 2006, he fell ill with near-fatal pneumonia, which left him using a wheelchair and with motor skills problems. His health had been fragile ever since.
He was a true screen legend who produced one of cinema’s greatest characters in Some Like It Hot, and he will be severely missed.
Tony Curtis – June 3rd, 1925-September 30th, 2010 – RIP