NAME: Tony Curtis
BORN: 03/06/1925
BIRTH PLACE: New York, USA


BIOGRAPHY

Tony Curtis, real name Bernard Schwartz, was born one of three sons of a tailor in the Bronx, of Jewish-Hungarian stock.

A truck killed his brother, Julius, in 1938, by which time the young Curtis had already joined a street gang.

Curtis joined the Navy in 1943. After the Second World War, he joined the Dramatic Workshop in the City College of New York. In 1948, with the prospect of a job offer from Universal, he moved to California.

His screen debut was in 'Criss Cross' in 1948, initially billed as James Curtis, before changing to Anthony. Moving his family to California the next year, he married top actress Janet Leigh in 1951, the first of many failed marriages.

Curtis took varied work, making it big with 'The Sweet Smell of Success', in 1957, and the Sidney Poitier film, 'The Defiant Ones', in 1958, for which he won an Oscar nomination.





In the early 1970s, Curtis appeared on British TV in 'The Persuaders', and wrote his first novel, 'Kid Andrew Cody & Julie Sparrow', in 1977.

Curtis has been active in promoting Jewish-Hungarian culture and founded the Emanuel Foundation for Hungarian Culture.

After undergoing a cardiac bypass operation in 1994, Curtis is still working and writing.