I just finished reading Tony Curtis' autobiography called American Prince. I'd given it to my mother for her birthday, thinking she might enjoy stories about a movie icon from her youth. She read it and gave it back to me, as she does with gift books. I didn't really know much about him, but he acted in so many movies, you couldn't avoid knowing who he was. Certainly a good-looking man, a natural athlete with plenty of personal charm. He was beautiful. Compact with tight muscles, abundant black curly hair and stunning blue eyes.
"See me!" this figure seems to shout from the photographs in the book. That's what show business is about. Look at him. Watch him walking and speaking and playing a part. His athleticism and perfectionism motivated him to perform his own stunts. He studied horsemanship ("Spartacus"), fencing ("The Prince Who Was a Thief"), aerial gymnastics ("Trapeze"), and yes that's really him chained up and submerged in water as the title role in "Houdini." He loved to give a great show.
There are many memoirs written by Hollywood people that tell great stories about movie making and personalities. This book does not skimp here. It's an ego-driven art form, and the drama-within-the-drama is most interesting.
I think it's marvelous that his co-writer, Peter Golenbock, lets him speak in his natural voice. You get a good grasp of Mr. Curtis' worldview, which is very, very narrow. Like a cat's eye. This is a man who grew up in a home where abuse, neglect, and a lack of demonstrated love was seasoned with poverty and prejudice. He was sensitive to anti-semitism (I didn't know he was Jewish until I read this book) and separatism. He had a keen hunger for recognition and praise.
Acting, applause, and the attention of Hollywood's most beautiful women were his life's striving . As much of these few things as he could possibly take in. And they all did belong to him. His gifts and his drive were undeniable. He made as many movies as he could, whether they were good or bad. He bedded and sometimes wedded the cream of feminine beauty. Married or not, he flew from flower to flower with joyful abandonment. He was absent from home for spans of weeks and months pursuing his career.
"After I sat down on the couch, Natalie (Wood) walked across to the trailer door and locked it. She came back to where I was sitting, sat down next to me, and kissed me deeply. It was a kiss that perfectly expressed the feeling that had been exquisitely building between us as we worked together... the next thing I knew we were making crazy love on the sofa of that trailer...
"As things played out, the pace of our shooting schedule in Salzberg kept us from finding a time when we could be together again, and in truth that was fine with me. I was happily married to Christine, and our first child, Alexandra, had already been born. Once we were done shooting the picture, I went back to my life, and Natalie went back to hers, and we both knew that was best for both of us...
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| With Natalie Wood from the movie "The Great Race" |
"Over the years I had a powerful tendancy to fall for my leading ladies, and usually I found a way to make my feelings known. If a woman seemed receptive, I might make an advance, and if i got a good response to that, I would keep pressing my case. There's no question about the fact that I was driven to conquer every woman I met. I liked to think of myself as a ladies' man, and I felt quite compelled to prove it."
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| A break in the filming of "Some Like it Hot" with Marilyn Monroe. She became pregnant during this production, while married to Arthur Miller, and it was rumored to be Tony Curtis' baby. The preganancy was interrupted. |
"Not long before we split up, I took (my wife) Lisa to Paris as part of the publicity tour for my first book, Tony Curtis: The Autobiography, and we had some crazy fun on the roof of our hotel. It was a very romantic evening, but it turned out to be the last one we would ever enjoy. After we returned to LA, Lisa came home late one night. She was drunk, so I said, 'Get out of here until you sober up.' She went downstairs to her bedroom and fell asleep. As I watched her walk away, I knew our marriage was over... There were no recriminations. I had had a good time while it lasted, and that was the end of that... I just moved on."
I'm imagining the humiliation Lisa must have experienced by the reading public as she toured with this man whose stories of debauchery were being circulated in hard cover. How did she hold her head up?
"You're drunk. Get out of here until you sober up."
He was mostly absent from the raising of his six children, who were raised by ex-wives. He did not know them well.
"I couldn't shake the feeling that I was somehow responsible for (son) Nicholas's death. Why did Nicholas get into drugs in the first place? Was he doing drugs because I had done them? Was he doing drugs because he had a void where his father should have been? We got along well, so I didn't think that was it...
"At Nicholas' funeral, a local minister got up and talked about Nicholas' poor mother and the loss she suffered. He never mentioned my name or even indicated that Nicholas had a father... After the service, I wrote him a letter asking, 'Why didn't you even mention my name?' Fuck him. He couldn't have been much of a minister or a father if he'd so completely lost sight of the Golden Rule."
He writes a few pages that mention the rest of his children and his pride in them, but being focused now on the woman du jour, his wife at the time of the writing, he devotes more verbage to the wonderful life they share. Many joys, few regrets. A man hates to be alone. "Things tend to balance out in the end," he says.
I hope that he said enough about his children that they feel some comfort after his death. It must have been a bewildering relationship for them, and I hope they have good therapists.
"They say that America's royalty is its Hollywood stars. The great thing about America is that you don't need to be born into a royal family. You could be born into an immigrant family in a New York tenement and still become a prince through hard work and desire."
"For better or for worse, I only stop to look back... Mostly I live in the moment, right now, and I'm grateful for it. I know that most of this life lies behind me, but what I live for is today, and for the tomorrows that remain... I can honestly say I've lived my time here fully..."
He passed away at age 85 in September. Few regrets, a life well-lived by a prince with the eyes of a cat.
