Friday, Sept. 17, 2004 | 4:05 a.m.
WEEKEND EDITION
September 18 - 19, 2004
The son of Hungarian immigrants, Bernard Schwartz grew up impoverished in the tough neighborhoods of New York City in the 1930s.
It was an often bleak existence for Schwartz. His younger brother, Julius, was hit and killed by a truck at 9 and his father, who earned a meager living as a tailor, often struggled to pay rent. Meanwhile, racism and religious intolerance were so plentiful that Schwartz joined a gang of other Jewish teenagers to retaliate against Nazi thugs.
But Schwartz survived, and three decades later emerged the toast of Hollywood as matinee idol Tony Curtis, star of such classic films as "The Sweet Smell of Success," "The Defiant Ones," "Some Like It Hot" and "The Boston Strangler."
But Curtis has never been able to bridge the gap from his hardscrabble childhood to adult Hollywood star. Even at 79 the acting legend and Las Vegas resident still wrestles with the identities of Schwartz and Curtis, considering them individual personalities forged by drastically different lifestyles.
With his past induction Tuesday into the UNLV Nevada Entertainer/Artist Hall of Fame, the Las Vegas Sun talked to Curtis about coming to grips with his fame, what it was like rooming with Marlon Brando and his thoughts on having never won an Oscar.
Las Vegas Sun: Congratulations on your induction into the UNLV Entertainer/Artist Hall of Fame.
Tony Curtis: It's quite an honor. I mean, I'm stunned by it. I never finished school. I never went to high school, I just barely finished elementary school. I've been in movies -- or interested in movies -- for 75 years now. So it gave me an opportunity to acquire all of these different gifts that we have for thinking. For this college, which is the most beautiful college, to make me an honorary is a thrill.
Sun: In your book, "Tony Curtis: The Autobio- graphy," you write that you never have been comfortable with Tony Curtis. Have you come to grips with that persona?
TC: No, they're both still separate. I like Tony Curtis a lot. He's a gentleman. He knows all the attributes of living. He knows how to say hello to people. He can be very interested in what people have to say. He has information and opinions and when it looks like they need something, he can be there. He tells good stories and the girls love him. It can't get better than that.
Sun: And what about Bernie?
TC: Bernie has never come to grips with success or with accomplishing anything or thinking he has accomplished anything. I find Bernie's always looking around, always looking for what job he is going to do, how can he improve this or do that. He doesn't relax as much as Tony Curtis does.
Now all I need is a professor of psychology who can talk to both of these guys. I may finally reconcile the two of them.
Sun: Talk about your early career in movies.
TC: My early career in movies wasn't anything unique. I was signed by Universal. They saw me in New York City and brought me out to California and gave me a seven-year contract. I was 23 years old. And I started making movies. I would make three movies a year. And for 10 years my agent, who was Lew Wasserman, said to me, "You make three pictures a year for 10 years and at the end of the 10 years, you will be an international movie star. That's the kind of penetration you have to make in your profession." And I never forgot that advice.
Sun: Did you believe him?
TC: I believed him completely. And I went ahead and did it and he was right.
Sun: You've worked with several respected directors during your career: Billy Wilder, Carol Reed, Blake Edwards, Norman Jewison, among them. But Stanley Kubrick is your favorite.
TC: Yes, he was the most human of all directors. When I say human, his emotions were intertwined with yours. As you were playing a scene, he wasn't directing you and you weren't acting for him. You both, together, were searching out a way to play a scene, how to say that line, what entrance should you come in on? And the way he would set up a scene, it was natural and easy and uncomplicated. He was a brilliant man.
Sun: It's no secret that filming "Some Like It Hot" with Marilyn Monroe was very difficult. She almost always forgot her lines and was chronically late to the set. Later, when a reporter asked you what it was like to make love to Marilyn Monroe, you famously replied: "Kissing her is like kissing Hitler." In your book, though, you claim you never said that.
TC: Completely out of context, had nothing to do with the show at all. It was never said by me.
Sun: But it was difficult working with her?
TC: Well, it was difficult working with her, it's difficult working with a horse. Marilyn was very difficult. But I could give you a list of six or seven actresses that were very difficult, and they weren't any better or worse than the guys.
It was a hard time working with Marilyn, but not so hard to say, "Kissing her is like kissing Hitler."
Sun: There are not many of your peers alive. Does it surprise you that you're one of the last of your era in Hollywood still around?
TC: I can't even believe it. I don't know how that happened. R.J. Wagner is still around. He's a friend of mine and we both started at the same time. Nobody's left. Oh, there are a couple of them hanging around, but nobody in the category that R.J. and me and Marlon Brando were.
Sun: You lived with Brando for four months in Los Angeles when you were first starting your career.
TC: Yeah, we had a house on Barham Boulevard. I drove him to Palm Springs, he and two other friends of ours. The four of us went to the Racquet Club, which was a very popular place. There was a girl at the bar and Marlon maneuvered his way over to the girl. She looked right past him at me. About five years later Marlon says to me, "Tony, you are the only guy who ever took a girl away from me." That's quite an accomplishment, isn't it? (Laughs.)
Sun: You've been divorced four times in your life. Do you have any regrets about the marriages?
TC: Every one. I shouldn't have gotten married, I should have stayed single. And I had children. But I now think back and realize that getting married at an early age while you're still trying to strive for a career, while you're still trying to create an environment that you're happy to be living in, it needs all your attention. It's easy to say that.
Sun: And your friend Jerry Lewis tried to talk you out of marrying Janet Leigh?
TC: Yes, he tried and he almost did it.
Sun: Why didn't you call off the marriage?
TC: I was in love and I didn't want to disappoint anybody. And she was sweet. She was a lovely woman. She's quite ill now.
Sun: You never won an Oscar ...
TC: I was nominated for one with Sidney Poitier, "The Defiant Ones."
Sun: Does never winning an Oscar bother you?
TC: Yes it does bother me. I've got a dozen movies that I think were excellent: "The Sweet Smell of Success," "The Boston Strangler," "Some Like It Hot," "The Defiant Ones." I've got a lot of movies that deserve some mention, but nothing. So it angers me.
Sun: If the Academy of Motion Pictures were to call you up and tell you they were giving you the lifetime achievement award ...
TC: I'm not so sure I would jump. (Laughs.) I don't know. It's a game that's got to play out, which I doubt will ever come to that conclusion. But if it does, I will call you and thank you.
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