Gary O'Blog

TONY CURTIS

Posted by: Gary O'Brien

Thursday, April 16, 2009 2:02 PM

What a thrill it was recently to speak to a true movie star Tony Curtis! There are actors and there are movie stars, and I think it would be safe to say that Tony Curtis is a movie star. In fact he admits he loves that term. Tony Curtis was always the lover of the ladies, and that certainly now hasn't changed. Throughout the conversation, he talked about how pretty the girls were in towns that he visited (including Champaign-Urbana!) and remembers much of what he has done by the ladies that made an impression. One story that has been told over the years was taken out of context and he actually received a lot of flack over it back in the 1940s when he was filming "Some Like It Hot" with Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe. There was a scene where he 'had to' kiss Marilyn Monroe. When the scene was over, the sound guy asked Tony what it was like to kiss Monroe. Curtis responded "It was like kissing Hitler!" Now at that time WW2 was on everyone's mind and a Hitler reference was not taken very well. He received much criticism for saying that. But as is often the case when something controversial is reported, the comment was taken out of context. The question was asked by the sound man, but what wasn't reported was that Curtis responded sarcastically and what he really said was "It was like kissing Hitler! What do think it was like?" Of course he said it was as wondeful as he could have ever imagined! We had a terrific visit and I am sure we will talk again down the road. Coming on the show soon will be Tony's wife who runs a Horse Rescue charity called Shiloh. Google Shiloh for their website. It is really great work that she does. We will talk to her in the next month or so about the great work she does. I was happily surprised the other day when a signed photo from Mr. Curtis arrived in the mail. It was a classic pose of him and Jack Lemmon from "Some Like it Hot." He signed it "To Gary, Thanks for the Interview! Tony Curtis." That's a keeper...very cool. Tony (he asked to be called Tony rather than Mr. Curtis) loves doing interviews because he says it keeps him in the spotlight and loves it when fans come up and talk to him when he is out and about. And the fans love it too...because they love seeing a true movie star. And a movie star is what Tony Curtis really is.

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