Tony Curtis
(June 3, 1925 – September 29, 2010)
Tony Curtis was an American film actor. He was one of Hollywood's last matinee idols; the product of a classic success story. He was born Bernie Schwartz, the son of an impoverished Hungarian immigrant, rose from a New York ghetto to enjoy fame and stardom that was largely unparalleled for much of the 1950s and 1960s.
He played a variety of roles, from light comedy, such as the musician on the run from gangsters in Some Like It Hot, to serious dramatic roles, such as an escaped convict in The Defiant Ones, which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. From 1949, he appeared in more than 100 films and made frequent television appearances.
Towards the latter part of his life, Curtis increasingly devoted himself to his painting, claiming Magritte and Matisse as influences. His autobiography, American Prince: A Memoir, appeared in 2008.
Curtis married six times; his last wife, Jill Vandenburg Curtis, more than four decades his junior, survives him. One of his sons, Nicholas, predeceased him in 1994 after overdosing on heroin aged 23, a blow from which Curtis said he never recovered. The actress and author Jamie Lee Curtis is his daughter by Janet Leigh.
Jamie Lee Curtis confirmed that her father died in bed at his Las Vegas home, of an apparent cardiac arrest.
RIP
___