Tony Curtis RIP

losthorizon

One of my favourite actors has died. Tony Curtis

http://www.etonline.com/news/101349_Breaking_News_Actor_Tony_Curtis_Has_Passed_Away/index.html

Some like it Hot Was a Great Film often called the greatest comedy of all time. His family fled from Budapest in Hungary just before WW2 to escape persecution. He Helped raise money for the synagogue there. If you are ever there you should go as its very impressive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udZgIsIKU30&feature=related

In the scene above he modelled his voice on Cary Grant

iMax

Love that movie, my dad used to wake us when it came on TV late at night (it seemed late, was probably about 9.30/10 to see it, that & The Producers).

Some great colour candid photos from the making of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7iqHxktLN0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogNQHMyVZvk

Not that I think they should remake it, but I'd be interested in seeing a faithful modern remake. Just can't think of who could carry it off they way those three did.

At 1:10 on the second one, you get to see just how "daring" Marilyn's sequinned dress from the movie was.

LittleBook

"They gave me away as a prize once - a Win Tony Curtis For A Weekend competition. The woman who won was disappointed. She'd hoped for second prize - a new stove."

A long life filled with highs and lows, not the most prestigious CV in the world of film but certainly one of the more memorable characters in the industry.

Birneybau

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/39433821

JP Liz V1

Movie actor Tony Curtis, best known for light comedies including "Some Like It Hot," has died at 85

RIP

krudler

Was great in Some Like It Hot, his chemistry with Jack Lemmon was fantastic in that, RIP

losthorizon

A year or two ago they released a season of classic films around the country. One of them was Spartacus. I went along to see it as its a great film and as they had restored some scenes to the film which were originally cut from the movie. Funnily enough Tony Curtis featured in those scenes. Scenes which nowadays you wouldnt bat an eyelid at.

mike65

At his best one of the best. Easy to forget that he was a first class straight actor as well as comedy star

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQjM01pxQi0

delbertgrady

Proper old school Hollywood legend.
Sweet Smell of Success is phenomenal.

ucdmike

R.I.P.

D-FENS

My favorite Curtis performance was as Albert DeSalvo aka the Boston Strangler.

I know there is a lot of doubt as to the authenticity of the film due to the theory that DeSalvo wasn’t the real killer, but just taking the film on its own, even as a work of partial fiction, it’s a brilliant portrayal of someone suffering from multiple personality disorder.
Obviously a lot of credit needs to go to director Richard Fleischer, but the final scenes when DeSalvo is being questioned and has flashbacks to the murders, were he’d previously genuinely believed he was at home with his family at the time of the murders, even to the point of having fake memories of this, was actually really saddening to watch. He was in genuine distress at the realisation he’d done the crimes and to see that guilt wash over him was really disturbing but brilliantly done by Curtis.
Of course the other implication is that the questioning was more like hypnosis, and the visions he was having of the murders were the fake ones, but either way, great work by Curtis in a film that was a real change of genre for him at the time.

Oh, and his voice on the phone in Rosemary’s baby. The fact that Mia Farrow recognised the voice but didn’t know it was Tony was a great idea to add to her distressed performance.

losthorizon

I read a book by the screen writer Joe Eszterhas called The Devils Guide To Hollywood who like Tony Curtis came from Hungarian stock. In it he had a great story that Tony Curtis told him: "Universal sent me to Chicago on tour for a picture. I made an appearance at a theatre, and while I was there I met a beautiful girl who worked in the Universal distributing office, and I asked her if she'd go out with me after I finished the tour that day. She said yes, so we had dinner, and I took her up to the hotel room. We necked on the couch and got semi-undressed, and she started to go down on me. About the fourth stroke, she stopped and looked up at me and said, " If my mother could only see me now". I said, "Darling, it's not polite to talk with your mouth full".

mike65

eircom: Tony

His take on a Cary Grant accent in Some like it hot is the highlight of that movie for me. When he actually acted alongside Cary Grant in Operation Petticoat he was easily the better actor. Good actor, good artist ... sad:(

losthorizon

Another Story in that book was the time he insulted Walter Matthau:

When I left the Navy I used the GI Bill to get into the Dramatic Workshop, which was located at the President Theatre on Forty-eighth Street. Walter Matthau and Harry Belafonte were students there, too. We were all just trying to make it. Later on, I went out to California, and good things started happening for me. When I came back to New York to do a promotion for City Across the River, they gave me a suite at the Sherry-Netherland and a huge black limo. I took it around to show my buddies in the Bronx and then went by the Dramatic Workshop. It was a terrible, rainy afternoon, and who do I see out in front? Walter Matthau. He's got a long, heavy coat on with a Racing Form sticking out of the pocket, and he's looking down at the gutter. Here I am in this nice, warm limo. And there he is, this grumpy guy surrounded by a cold, miserable world. The look on his face says, "What's ever going to happen for me? Nothin'!" So I tell the driver to pull alongside him and stop. Now Walter's watching the limo. I roll the window down, look at him, and say, "I f**ked Yvonne De Carlo!" Then I roll the window back up in a hurry and tell the driver to get the hell out of there.


I never heard of her to be honest but I looked her up. No wonder he was so proud of himself!!

Skerries

she's Lily Munster!