Tony Curtis RIP

[Danger Man]

He looked like Serge's dad in his final days:



He was good in Some Like it Hot and The Persuaders....

Anything else?

[jutl]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Smell_of_Success

[boxofslice]

He was rather good in The Boston Strangler and The Defiant Ones

[Ignatius_S]

Curtis was rather good in The Boston Strangler and I would say his performance is one of the strongest elements of the film.

Although I don't think it's often not that well regarded, I'm very fond of The Great Race where Curtis' The Great Leslie was pitted against Jack Lemmon as Professor Fate, who is aided by Peter Falk. He was also in Monte Carlo or Bust, which was pretty star-studded and featured Cook and Moore.

I quite like him, but I think he was lucky in his career. However, I always thought it was ungentlemanly that he criticised Monroe so much around the time of Some Like It Hot and then completely backtracked to the extent of denying that he found it trying to work with her.

[Ignatius_S]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Smell_of_Success

Ah, that's a good 'un!

[Doomy Dwyer]

'Insignificance'? He played a Joe McCarthyesque figure. Theresa Russell was a Marilyn Monroey actress. There was a Joe DiMaggio type and an Einsteinalike too. Set in a hotel room. Nic Roeg. I've not seen it for years, but I liked it at the time. It's mentioned in the song E=MC² by BAD, along with other Roeg films. Probably worth a look.

He will mostly be remembered for his hair I imagine. The DA when he was a young man. The increasingly bizarre and distressing range of wigs he favoured in his later years. He was old school Hollywood, a proper star. Shit but glamourous, drink, drugs and ho-ers. More interesting off screen than on, with occasional flashes of not badness. 

[JPA]

Has anyone seen that rather peculiar but charming interview with him on the Some Like It Hot DVD?

[Ignatius_S]

'Insignificance'? He played a Joe McCarthyesque figure. Theresa Russell was a Marilyn Monroey actress...

He was old school Hollywood, a proper star. Shit but glamourous, drink, drugs and ho-ers. More interesting off screen than on, with occasional flashes of not badness.

Never seen that, but I've always wanted to.

You mean he wore a piece???

Has anyone seen that rather peculiar but charming interview with him on the Some Like It Hot DVD?

The version I had for ages was a vanilla version, but I've recently picked up a cheap copy with that interview but haven't watched it ye.

But here he is with Dame Edna:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLVC1bKAMIE

A fine head of hair.

[HAYRDRYAH]

Although I don't think it's often not that well regarded, I'm very fond of The Great Race

That's about white people, right?

[Ignatius_S]

Possibly, but I mainly remember a big car race, a punch-up and a pie fight.

[Jake Thingray]

Curtis was rather good in The Boston Strangler and I would say his performance is one of the strongest elements of the film.

Although I don't think it's often not that well regarded, I'm very fond of The Great Race where Curtis' The Great Leslie was pitted against Jack Lemmon as Professor Fate, who is aided by Peter Falk. He was also in Monte Carlo or Bust, which was pretty star-studded and featured Cook and Moore.

I quite like him, but I think he was lucky in his career. However, I always thought it was ungentlemanly that he criticised Monroe so much around the time of Some Like It Hot and then completely backtracked to the extent of denying that he found it trying to work with her.

Agree entirely, there's a lovely Columbo-seque moment in THE GREAT RACE where Falk says "terrific!" to Lemmon. In one of the later, 1990's COLUMBO eps, Curtis might have been good as a hasbeen film star who murders a crass latter-day Hollywood mogul, and in his speech giving himself up after being proved guilty rails against the businesssmen who run that town now, as opposed to the Louis B. Mayers and so on.

Agree with most of the comments about Curtis in this thread, SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS is indeed great. But THE PERSUADERS is rubbish, only really popular in places like Belgium and Moore's reputed description of Curtis as "that Hungarian horse fucker" is funnier than anything in the series itself.

Mention of MONTE CARLO OR BUST brings to mind Cook being quoted as saying that stupid film stars, as with Curtis and Stallone, turn to painting when their looks go, and the intelligent ones like Dirk Bogarde write books. Which may, of course, have been influenced by Bogarde's being a PRIVATE EYE shareholder.

He also did some pretty dubious projects post the 60's, and perhaps too many chat shows talking about the old days. CASANOVA AND CO. seems almost like a Europudding version of a Robin Askwith film, Victor Spinetti and Hugh Griffith were in it. THE MUMMY LIVES, produced by notorious international sleazebucket Harry Alan Towers (whom I shall one day write a biography of), with Curtis as the mummy, must be hilarious for all the wrong reasons, it was actually meant for Anthony Perkins, who would have been more appropriate but was in the last stages of AIDS. There's a rather funny piece on the website about Klaus Kinski, regarding a no-budget piece of nonsense Curtis was meant to do as a ghost, but went to the Betty Ford Cliinc and Kinski of all people replaced him, and demanded to be paid in cash. Perhaps the tabloids will track down Debee Ashby now.

[SavageHedgehog]

He did seem to deteriorate very suddenly after looking miraculously good for his age for years and years. I think all his best roles have been mentioned, but personally I always found naturally likable even in crap. Most people who grew up watching too much TV probably first "saw" him as "Stoney Curtis" on The Flintstones.

[Jemble Fred]

In that photo right at the top, he looks like the perfect King Lear (in the final act, that is).

[Serge]

He looked like Serge's dad in his final days

Ha! That cheered me up, that did, as I'm a bit sad about ol' Bernie passing on. (Though my actual dad still has a full head of hair, the bastard.)

Big fan of Curtis, he was fantastic in 'The Persuaders', lending it just the right amount of tongue in cheek. Though, as has been noted above, he was also outstanding in 'Sweet Smell Of Success' and 'The Boston Strangler', the latter proving that he was more than just a pretty boy. My mum will be pretty upset, too - she bloody adored him.

Only Kirk left now?

[boxofslice]

Most people who grew up watching too much TV probably first "saw" him as "Stoney Curtis" on The Flintstones.

[Emily Very Blunt]

^^^
Fine films all but truly his greatest gift to humanity was his turn as ex-cop turned Private Eye Archimedes Potter, Father of Jane in...

Tarzan in Manhattan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhgb3TAiyoI