55 Facts About Tony Curtis

Tony Curtis acted in more than 100 films, in roles covering a wide range of genres.

Tony Curtis achieved his first major recognition as a dramatic actor in Sweet Smell of Success with co-star Burt Lancaster.

In 1960, Curtis played a supporting role in the epic historical drama Spartacus.

Tony Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz on June 3,1925, at the Fifth Avenue Hospital corner of East 105th Street in Manhattan, New York City, the first of three boys born to Helen and Emanuel Schwartz.

Tony Curtis's parents were Jewish emigrants from Hungary: his father was born in Opalyi, near Mateszalka, and his mother was a native of Nagymihaly ; she later said she arrived in the US from Valyko.

Tony Curtis spoke only Hungarian until the age of six, delaying his schooling.

Tony Curtis's father was a tailor and the family lived in the back of the shop.

When Tony Curtis was eight, he and his brother Julius were placed in an orphanage for a month because their parents could not afford to feed them.

Tony Curtis joined a neighborhood gang whose main crimes were playing truant from school and minor pilfering at the local dime store.

When Tony Curtis was 11, a friendly neighbor saved him from what he felt would have led to a life of delinquency by sending him to a Boy Scout camp, where he was able to work off his energy and settle down.

Tony Curtis enlisted in the United States Navy after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Tony Curtis served aboard a submarine tender, the USS Proteus, until the end of the Second World War.

On September 2,1945, Tony Curtis witnessed the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay from his ship's signal bridge about a mile away.

Tony Curtis then studied acting at The New School in Greenwich Village under the influential German stage director Erwin Piscator.

Tony Curtis's contemporaries included Elaine Stritch, Harry Belafonte, Walter Matthau, Beatrice Arthur, and Rod Steiger.

Under contract at Universal Pictures, he changed his name from Bernard Schwartz to Anthony Tony Curtis and met unknown actors Rock Hudson, James Best, Julie Adams and Piper Laurie.

The first name was from the novel Anthony Adverse and "Tony Curtis" was from Kurtz, a surname in his mother's family.

Tony Curtis was in Francis, Woman in Hiding, and I Was a Shoplifter.

Tony Curtis was receiving numerous fan letters, so Universal gave him the starring role in The Prince Who Was a Thief, a swashbuckler set in the Middle East with Piper Laurie.

Tony Curtis followed it up with Flesh and Fury, a boxing movie; No Room for the Groom, a comedy with Laurie directed by Douglas Sirk; and Son of Ali Baba, another film set in the Middle East with Laurie.

Tony Curtis then starred with then-wife Janet Leigh in Houdini, in which Tony Curtis played the title role.

Tony Curtis then starred in the musical So This Is Paris in, before appearing in Six Bridges to Cross, as a bank robber; The Purple Mask, as a swashbuckler; and the boxing film The Square Jungle.

Tony Curtis made a Western, The Rawhide Years, was a gambler in Mister Cory and a cop in The Midnight Story.

Tony Curtis starred alongside Kirk Douglas and Janet Leigh in The Vikings, which was a box office hit.

Tony Curtis then co-starred with Frank Sinatra and Natalie Wood in the war movie Kings Go Forth, before starring in The Defiant Ones the following year as a bigoted white escaped convict chained to a black man.

At the 31st Academy Awards, Tony Curtis was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance - losing to David Niven in Separate Tables.

Tony Curtis subsequently co-starred with Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot as well as Cary Grant in Operation Petticoat.

Tony Curtis then started in a supporting role in Spartacus, before making two biopics: The Great Impostor, directed by Robert Mulligan, playing Ferdinand Waldo Demara; and The Outsider, in which he played war hero Ira Hayes.

Tony Curtis returned to epics with Taras Bulba, co starring Yul Brynner and Christine Kaufmann, who became Curtis's second wife.

On October 6,1961, Tony Curtis formed a new film production company, Tony Curtis Enterprises, Incorporated.

Tony Curtis would make 40 Pounds of Trouble, which co-starred Curtis, Suzanne Pleshette and Phil Silvers; it was the first motion picture ever filmed at Disneyland.

Tony Curtis was one of many stars who had small roles in The List of Adrian Messenger.

Tony Curtis made some comic adventure tales: You Can't Win 'Em All with Charles Bronson and Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came.

Tony Curtis was one of the villains in The Count of Monte Cristo and had the title role in the gangster film Lepke.

Tony Curtis had the lead in a TV series that did not last, McCoy.

Tony Curtis had good roles in It Rained All Night the Day I Left, Little Miss Marker and The Scarlett O'Hara War and was one of many stars in The Mirror Crack'd.

In 2002, Tony Curtis was in the national tour of Some Like it Hot, a modified revival of the 1972 musical Sugar, itself based on the film in which he starred.

Tony Curtis spoke of his disappointment at never being awarded an Oscar.

In March 2006, Tony Curtis received the Sony Ericsson Empire Lifetime Achievement Award.

Tony Curtis has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame inducted in 1960, and received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France in 1995.

The couple divorced in 1962, and the following year Tony Curtis married Christine Kaufmann, the 18-year-old German co-star of his latest film, Taras Bulba.

Tony Curtis stated that his marriage with Leigh had effectively ended "a year earlier".

Tony Curtis married Andrea Savio in 1984; they divorced in 1992.

In 1965, Tony Curtis was animated in an episode of The Flintstones; he voiced his character Stoney Curtis.

Tony Curtis's face is featured among the celebrities on the cover of the Sgt.

In 2005, Tony Curtis was criticized after he stated that he would refuse to watch Brokeback Mountain.

Tony Curtis additionally stated that John Wayne would not have approved of a film about gay cowboys.

Tony Curtis shared his memories of the making of the movie, in particular about Marilyn Monroe, whose antics and attitude on the set made everyone miserable.

On May 22,2009, Tony Curtis apologized to the BBC radio audience after he used three profanities in a six-minute interview with BBC presenter William Crawley.

In 1974, Tony Curtis developed a heavy cocaine addiction while filming Lepke, at a time when his stardom had declined considerably and he was being offered few film roles.

In 1984, Tony Curtis was rushed to the hospital suffering from advanced cirrhosis as a result of his alcoholism and cocaine addiction.

Tony Curtis then entered the Betty Ford Clinic and vowed to overcome his various illnesses.

Tony Curtis underwent heart bypass surgery in 1994, after suffering a heart attack.

Tony Curtis died at his Henderson home on September 29,2010, of cardiac arrest.

Tony Curtis's remains were interred at Palm Memorial Park Cemetery in Henderson, Nevada, on October 4,2010.