page_title: Tony Curtis
section_title: Major star
hierarchical_section_title: Tony Curtis / Career / Major star
caption_attribution_description: Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis in a promotional image for Some Like it Hot (1959)
context_page_description: Anthony Curtis was an American actor whose career 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, from light comedy to serious drama. In his later years, Curtis made numerous television appearances.
  Although his early film roles mainly took advantage of his good looks, by the latter half of the 1950s he had demonstrated range and depth in numerous dramatic and comedy roles. In his earliest parts he acted in a string of mediocre films, including swashbucklers, westerns, light comedies, sports films and a musical. However, by the time he starred in Houdini with his wife Janet Leigh, "his first clear success," notes critic David Thomson, his acting had progressed immensely.
  He achieved his first serious recognition as a dramatic actor in Sweet Smell of Success with co-star Burt Lancaster. The following year he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in The Defiant Ones alongside Sidney Poitier. Curtis then gave what could arguably be called his best performance: three interrelated roles in the comedy Some Like It Hot.
context_section_description: Curtis graduated to more prestigious projects when he was cast in support of Burt Lancaster and Gina Lollobrigida in Trapeze (1956). It was one of the biggest hits of the year.
  Curtis made a Western, The Rawhide Years (1957), was a gambler in Mister Cory (1957) and a cop in The Midnight Story (1957). Lancaster asked for him again, to play scheming press agent Sidney Falco in Sweet Smell of Success (1957), starring and co-produced by Lancaster. The film was a box office disappointment, but Curtis, for the first time in his career, received sensational reviews.
  Another star-maker, Kirk Douglas, was eager to work with him in The Vikings (1958). Janet Leigh also starred, and the resulting movie was a box office hit. Curtis then co-starred with Frank Sinatra and Natalie Wood in Kings Go Forth (1958), a war story. It was mildly popular, but The Defiant Ones (1958), was a bigger success. Curtis gave an Oscar-nominated performance as a bigoted white escaped convict chained to a black man, Sidney Poitier.
  Curtis and Janet Leigh then made a popular comedy for Blake Edwards at Universal, The Perfect Furlough (1958). He co-starred with Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe in Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959). It was a huge success and became a classic; equally popular was Operation Petticoat (1959), a military comedy which Curtis made for Edwards alongside Cary Grant.
  Curtis and Leigh made one more film together Who Was That Lady? (1960), a comedy with Dean Martin. He and Debbie Reynolds then starred in The Rat Race (1960).
  Douglas came calling again, offering Curtis a key role in the former's epic production Spartacus (1960). It was a huge hit and earned Curtis a Golden Globe nomination.
  Curtis then made his first movies in a while without a significant "name" co star. Both were biopics: The Great Impostor (1961), directed by Robert Mulligan, playing Ferdinand Waldo Demara; and The Outsider (1961), where he played war hero Ira Hayes. He went back to epics with Taras Bulba (1962), co starring Yul Brynner and Christine Kaufmann, who soon became Curtis' second wife.
caption: Curtis with Marilyn Monroe in
  Some Like It Hot (1959)
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