Tony Curtis, whose real name is Bernard Schwartz, did not know any language other than Hungarian until he was 5-6 years old. The Schwartz family, who were very poor, lived behind the tailor shop. Since his parents could not feed their children, they had to give Tony and his brother Julius to an orphanage for a month.
Famous American actor Tony Curtis, who actually owes his fame to his debut in the 50s and 60s despite his cinema career spanning 60 long years, was born on June 3, 1925.
Curtis was born as one of three children in the Bronx to a Jewish immigrant family from Hungary who worked as a tailor. Tony Curtis, whose real name is Bernard Schwartz, did not know any language other than Hungarian until he was 5-6 years old. The Schwartz family, who were very poor, lived behind the tailor shop. Since his parents could not feed their children, they had to give Tony and his brother Julius to an orphanage for a month. Mother Helen, who was later diagnosed with schizophrenia, was beating her children. When his brother Julius died under a truck when he was only 11 years old, Tony joined a street gang. It was his neighbor who saved him by taking him off the streets and sending him to a scout camp. After this incident, Curtis' life changed. He started high school and appeared on stage in a play for the first time there. At the start of World War II, he enlisted in the army and served on a naval submarine until the war ended. Curtis, who started studying acting at The New School owned by the famous director Erwin Piscator after the war, included famous actors such as Walter Matthau and Bea Arthur among his classmates. It was at this time that Curtis was discovered by famous talent scout Joyce Selznick. He came to Hollywood in 1948, when he was only 22 and changed his name to Tony Curtis after signing with Universal Studios.
Tony Curtis (born Bernard Schwartz; June 3, 1925 – September 29, 2010) was an American actor with a career that spanned six decades, achieving the height of his popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in more than 100 films, in roles covering a wide range of genres. In his later years, Curtis made numerous television appearances.
Throughout his career, Curtis has appeared in numerous films, from the 1959 comedy "Some Like It Hot" with Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemmon to the 1960 film "Spartacus" with Kirk Douglas, to the 1976 drama "The Last Tycoon" directed by Elia Kazan. played. Although he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Golden Globe Awards for his performance in Spartacus and had a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the biggest disappointment of Curtis' career was never winning an Oscar. In the mid-80s, Curtis checked himself into a clinic to fight the scourge of alcoholism and managed to win the battle. In the 90s, something worse happened to him. His son Nicholas, born in 1970, died of a heroin overdose in 1994. Curtis described this incident as “something a parent can never get over or talk about.” Actress Janet Leigh, who was his first wife, had a completely different place in the life of Tony Curtis, who was married seven times and became a father six times. From this marriage he had two daughters, both of whom became actresses; Kelly Curtis and the Jamie Lee Curtis we all know. Beginning in the early 1990s, Tony Curtis and his daughter Jamie Lee Curtis became interested in their Hungarian Jewish background. They provided financial support for the reconstruction of the Budapest Great Synagogue, the largest synagogue in Europe. By establishing the Emmanuel Foundation in 1998, they contributed to the restoration of approximately 1,300 Jewish cemeteries and synagogues in Hungary.
Curtis, who fell ill at a book signing in Las Vegas on July 8, 2010, and was hospitalized, passed away from heart failure at his home in Henderson, Nevada, on September 29, 2010.