Tony Curtis, of a heart attack, at his home in Henderson NV. He was 85.
Born in the Bronx in 1925, his birth name was Bernard Schwartz. He was the son of Hungarian Jews who had emigrated to the United States after World War I. After serving in the Pacific during World War II and being wounded at Guam, he returned to New York and studied acting under the G.I. Bill. He appeared in summer stock productions and on the “Borscht Circuit” in the Catskills. In 1948, he signed a seven-year contract with the studio, starting at $100 a week.
He was trained by the studio, but his diction became a long standing Hollywood joke, when he read the line in “The Prince Who Was a Thief”, “Yonder lies the castle of my fodder.”
Curtis kept working and appeared in dozens of low-budget B-movies before getting his breakthrough role portraying Sidney Falco, the scheming press agent seeking favor with a sadistic columnist (Burt Lancaster), in the 1957 classic “Sweet Smell of Success.” This was followed by an Oscar-nominated role opposite Sidney Poitier in “The Defiant Ones”, in which he played a white racist escaped convict handcuffed to a black counterpart.
Other prestigious films followed: Stanley Kubrick’s “Spartacus,” “Captain Newman, M.D.,” “The Vikings,” “Kings Go Forth” and “The Boston Strangler”. Of course, he is probably most known for his role as the cross dressing musician on the run in “Some Like It Hot”, considered by many to be the greatest American film comedy. His was asked what it was like to kiss his co-star Marilyn Monroe, and replied it was like “kissing Hitler”, although he later recanted, saying that everyone was upset for her for her lateness and lack of preparation on the set.
He played the masculine side of his alias with a Cary Grant impersonation, only to be cast with Grant (his inspiration for becoming an actor) in his next film, “Operation Petticoat”. In later years he showed up on TV frequently, and was considered an above average artist, with paintings being sold for thousands of dollars. Also, he is known for his six marriages, including one to Janet Leigh (of “Psycho” fame), which produced his daughters, actresses Kelly Lee and Jamie Lee Curtis. He also had two daughters by his second wife, actress Christine Kaufmann, and two children from his third wife, Leslie Allen, including a son who died from a drug overdose in 1993.
Angelo at work
Oh Yeah?
R.I.P.
Arthur Penn, in New York, of heart failure, one day after his 88th birthday.
The son of a Philadelphia nurse and a watchmaker, Penn started out in TV in the early 50’s, and moved on to directing plays. On Broadway, he directed “Two for the Seesaw”, “Toys in the Attic” “The Miracle Worker” and “An Evening With Mike Nichols and Elaine May”. He soon moved over to film, directing “The Miracle Worker”, “Mickey One” and “The Chase”.
Probably nothing else needs to be said about his career, but that he directed “Bonnie and Clyde”.
The film is credited with ushering in a whole new era of films, influencing such movies as “Easy Rider” and “The Wild Bunch”, with their mix of realism, comedy and violence. The film integrated sex and violence in a way they hadn't been shown before. The final scene, where the outlaws are killed in an extended, slow-motion hail of bullets, is one of the most memorable and controversial in film history. An earlier scene, where a bank robbery is at first portrayed light-heartedly, ends in a brutal bullet to the head, leading audiences to question what would happen next.
He also directed “Alice’s Restaurant” and “Little Big Man”, which took a Native American viewpoint of the American West in general and Custer’s Last Stand in particular. After that came “Night Moves”, “Missouri Breaks” and “Dead of Winter”.
Penn once said of his movie subjects, "A society would be wise to pay attention to the people who do not belong if it wants to find out ... where it's failing,"
In his later years, Penn returned to television work in New York, producing segments of the “Law and Order” TV series.
He leaves a wife, son and daughter. (He is not related to actor Sean Penn.)
