Excerpt from
RogerEbert.com: (click for entire article)
When his handsome face and a stroke of luck brought Curtis to Hollywood in 1948, he was 23 years old and felt as if he was in heaven. That wasn't because of the acting opportunities. It was because of the women, and Tony was one of the town's best-known lotharios for decades. He loved acting, too, and made great films and bad ones with the same sense of fun. He was also a lifelong artist, whose paintings commanded decent fees, and a party animal until he got clean and sober in 1982. One thing you will not notice in the obituaries is anyone with a bad word to say about him. He was fun, and few had more fun than he did himself.
Curtis, born Bernard Schwartz in 1933 and raised in poverty and in an orphanage, finished Navy duty in World War Two, took acting lessons in New York, and in 1948 was spotted by a talent agent and signed by Universal Pictures. He was one of the most beautiful men to ever appear in the movies, and stardom came quickly. One day in 1985 at the Cannes Film Festival, he told me of those days:
"Let me tell you a story, sort of a parable. One day in 1948 I went to Hollywood. My name was Bernie Schwartz. I signed a contract at Universal, and I bought a house in the hills. It had a swimming pool. Unheated, but it had water in it. One night I came home late, I jumped in the pool, I swam a few laps, I got out, I dried myself off, I put on my clothes, and I walked directly into this room and sat down and started to talk to you. Do you see what I'm saying? Thirty-eight years, I don't know where they went. Gone like that.”
Recent Comments