Interview Revealed Defiant, Regretful Tony Curtis

HENDERSON, Nev. (Sept. 30) -- In 2008, upon the publication of his sex-soaked autobiography, legendary actor Tony Curtis sat for an interview in his suburban Las Vegas home studio. Next to him was an easel, where he had been working on painting over a 50-year-old studio publicity photo of himself in his heyday. It's a handsome photo, that famous thick head of curly black hair slicked just right as the budding movie star looks into the distance. The room was crammed with dozens of versions of the art project.

This was largely how Curtis, who died Wednesday night of cardiac arrest at 85, spent his dotage, looking back with equal measures of wistfulness, pride and regret on the course his life had taken. A New York street tough originally known as Bernard Schwartz, he rose from domestic abuse and poverty to become a Hollywood pretty boy before becoming a burnout, a drug addict and an outcast seeking some form of redemption and reconciliation.

"I don't know why I'm so dissatisfied," confided the star of "Some Like It Hot," "Spartacus," "The Defiant Ones" and another 120 films and an artist with work in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. "What am I looking for? What am I chasing?"

[HEAR PARTS ONE AND TWO OF STEVE FRIESS' 2008 INTERVIEW WITH TONY CURTIS ON HIS PODCAST, "THE STRIP"]

It's hard to know. Curtis enjoyed one of those American lives that most would envy. He was a matinee idol who appeared in films with his own idols, from Burt Lancaster to Cary Grant; who enjoyed wild dalliances with the world's most lusted-after women; who had genuine friendships with a list of Hollywood and Washington royalty. Curtis had the fortune of being present for several historic moments, none more amazing than visiting Joe Kennedy in January 1961 when then President-elect John F. Kennedy phoned in to read a draft of his soon to be iconic inauguration speech.

"He was on deck on the submarine in Tokyo Bay where the final surrender occurred in World War II," recalled Las Vegas Review-Journal gossip columnist Norm Clarke, who conducted a public question-and-answer session with Curtis in April. "What a front-row seat on history that had to be."

And yet none of that seemed to provide him much comfort. He felt so frustrated by Hollywood that he retired to Las Vegas, where he and sixth wife Jill lived and where she founded a wild horse rescue. He was openly saddened that he did not transition to playing older, wiser parts, the way Paul Newman and Marlon Brando did. He earned just one Oscar nomination in his career, for "The Defiant Ones," and complained that he had to share that honor with co-star Sidney Poitier, who was also nominated.

Curtis was due to shoot his first Hollywood role in years, a Sigourney Weaver picture titled "Vamps," but his part was recast after he collapsed in July at a Costco. Jill Curtis told VegasHappensHere.com in July that losing that role depressed him. (She could not be reached for this article.)

"I don't feel like I got the movies I should've gotten," Curtis said in 2008. "I felt I deserved more than that the industry had given me. I felt I should have been considered more, with a little more respect from the Screen Actors Guild and the Academy. I don't feel like I contributed what I wanted to contribute in the movies."

Curtis' book, "American Prince," was so saucy that Vanity Fair excerpted it when it came out. In it, he attacks a long list of Hollywood contemporaries, including Jerry Lewis, Danny Kaye, Shelley Winters, Piper Laurie, Angela Lansbury, Bobby Darin, Yul Brynner, Joan Collins and Neil Simon.

The book also went into great detail about his teenage affair with a redheaded, pony-tailed Marilyn Monroe and his romps with Yvonne DeCarlo, Natalie Wood and more than a few Playboy Bunnies.

As exotic as all of that sounds, Curtis admitted to me in our 2008 interview that he may have been addicted to sex.

"I realized if I could [have sex with] a girl ... a woman has accepted me," Curtis said. "The main force in me was to be accepted by others. Not education, not money in my pocket, nothing except to be accepted by a girl."

He explained his habit of painting over the blown-up photo of himself like this: "I embellish them; I keep making more of them. I want to find another quality about me that's in there somewhere."

Curtis was largely estranged from his five surviving children for much of the late part of his life. Among them is Jamie Lee Curtis, whose mother was actress Janet Leigh. During the 2008 interview, Curtis said he and Jamie Lee, whom he called "a very intelligent, thoughtful actress," spoke occasionally but weren't close.

"She asks me about some movies, but nobody really talks to me about acting much," he said. "Nobody asks me, now that I think of it, what my contribution to films should be."

So I did.

"There's no way to answer that," Curtis said. "There's no way to put a label on it. Maybe there is no label. Maybe I stop jerking off and just enjoy everything around me and leave it all alone."

Clarke, the Las Vegas columnist, also detected an aura of sadness around Curtis. He thinks that may have motivated the actor to be notably friendly to fans and generous with his money as well.

"He probably had a lot of regrets in his life," Clarke said. "It was like he was going out of his way to make amends for some of the sins of the past."