Actor Tony Curtis dies at 85

LOS ANGELES — Tony Curtis, the dashingly handsome film star of the 1950s and '60s best remembered for his hilarious turn in drag in Billy Wilder's classic comedy "Some Like It Hot" and dramatic roles in "The Defiant Ones" and "Sweet Smell of Success," died Wednesday night. He was 85.

Mr. Curtis died in Henderson, Nev., of cardiopulmonary arrest, said a spokeswoman for the Clark County coroner.

"He died peacefully here, surrounded by those who love him and have been caring for him," his sixth wife, Jill Curtis, said outside their home

A daughter, actress Jamie Lee Curtis, said in a statement, "My father leaves behind a legacy of great performances in movies and in his paintings and assemblages. He leaves behind children and their families who loved him and respected him and a wife and in-laws who were devoted to him. He also leaves behind fans all over the world."

One of Hollywood's most durable actors, Mr. Curtis appeared in more than 100 movies and was nominated for a best-actor Oscar for "The Defiant Ones," the 1958 convict-escape film in which he was chained to co-star Sidney Poitier.

But Mr. Curtis failed to receive a nomination for another strong role, one he felt sure would win him an Academy Award: Albert DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler. That 1968 film of the same name was the last of Mr. Curtis' major starring roles.

"After that, the pictures that I got were not particularly intriguing," he told The Seattle Times in 2000, "but I had lots of child-support payments."

For many film fans, Mr. Curtis' most memorable role was in "Some Like It Hot," the 1959 film in which he and Jack Lemmon played small-time jazz musicians who witnessed the St. Valentine's Day massacre in Chicago and, pursued by gangsters who wanted to kill them, too, posed as women to escape with an all-female jazz band bound for Miami.

In 2000, the American Film Institute named "Some Like It Hot" the best comedy of the 20th century.

Mr. Curtis made more than 60 feature and TV films after "The Boston Strangler," including "The Mirror Crack'd" in 1980 with Angela Lansbury and a string of forgettable movies, such as "Lobster Man From Mars" and "The Mummy Lives."

He also appeared numerous times on television sitcoms or dramatic series or as a talk-show guest. In the late 1960s, he frequently appeared on shows such as "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In."

Starting in 1949 as a contract player at Universal, Mr. Curtis broke out as a leading Hollywood actor in 1952 with "Son of Ali Baba."

The actor made the well-regarded "Houdini" in 1953 and from 1956 to 1959 starred in a string of critical and popular hits: "Trapeze," "Mister Cory," "Sweet Smell of Success," "The Vikings," "Kings Go Forth," "The Defiant Ones," "The Perfect Furlough," "Some Like It Hot" and "Operation Petticoat."

His characters varied, with swashbuckling heroes as well as a smarmy press agent, and showed, when the role called for it, a genuine comic talent. And his co-stars were the biggest names in Hollywood: Burt Lancaster, Marilyn Monroe, Cary Grant, Kirk Douglas, Frank Sinatra, Poitier, Lemmon, Natalie Wood and — in "The Vikings," "Houdini" and other films — his first wife, Janet Leigh.

In later years, Mr. Curtis mostly was reduced to being a celebrity without serious portfolio. This, combined with his early teen-idol image and a raft of mediocre films he was obligated to do under studio contract, left him with a reputation that was lighter than many of his substantial roles during his prime otherwise would support.

His 1970 arrest at London's Heathrow Airport for marijuana possession, while making the British television series "The Persuaders!" with Roger Moore, was seen as further evidence of why his bankability plummeted.

In 1984, after family and friends intervened to talk about his drug and alcohol problem, he admitted himself to the Betty Ford Center at Eisenhower Memorial Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

Mr. Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz on June 3, 1925, in New York, the oldest son of Jewish Hungarian immigrants. His father was a tailor, and his mother reared their three boys. But the family was marked by tragedy: One of Mr. Curtis' brothers was killed at age 9 when he was hit by a truck, and the other, 15 years Mr. Curtis' junior, suffered from schizophrenia and was in and out of institutions throughout his life.

Mr. Curtis' early life was a series of struggles; he said he was taunted constantly for being young, Jewish and handsome.

At 17, he enlisted in the Navy, serving in the Pacific during World War II. After leaving the service, he used the GI Bill for acting classes at the Dramatic Workshop of the New School for Social Research in Manhattan.

That led to work in the Borscht Belt in the Catskills and later to Yiddish theater in Chicago. He ended up back in New York doing "Golden Boy" at the Cherry Lane Theatre.

He was noticed there by a Hollywood talent scout and, by age 23, was under contract with Universal for $75 a week.

"I got into movies so easy it was scary," he told The Denver Post in 1996.

He changed his first name to Anthony and his last to Curtis, an Anglicized version of a Hungarian family name, Kertesz. Before long, he was known simply as Tony Curtis.

His acting career got its first boost with a bit part as a gigolo in the 1949 movie "Criss Cross," in which he did a brief dancing scene with the star, Yvonne De Carlo, that brought in a rash of fan letters. Mr. Curtis soon had a bigger role in "City Across the River."

He made standard studio fare for many years for Universal, finally receiving better roles when he linked up with powerhouse agent Lew Wasserman. After that, he starred with Lancaster in two well-regarded films, "Sweet Smell of Success" and "Trapeze."

In "Sweet Smell of Success," he played slimy publicist Sidney Falco to Lancaster's evil and all-powerful gossip columnist, J.J. Hunsecker.

In 1959, Mr. Curtis starred in two of his best films, "The Defiant Ones" and "Some Like It Hot."

Mr. Curtis got fully into the role of Josephine in "Some Like It Hot." Although Lemmon conceded he looked a lot like his mother in female makeup, Mr. Curtis went for glamour, perfecting a sexy pout.

"I was more like Grace Kelly than like my mother," he said of Josephine.

Director Wilder gave Mr. Curtis credit for one of the film's funniest scenes: the one in which Josephine reverts to being Joe and pretends to be a wealthy playboy to woo Sugar Kane (Monroe), the sultry singer in the women's jazz band. The scene takes place aboard a borrowed yacht.

In an interview for Mr. Curtis' autobiography, Wilder said he told Mr. Curtis that after his character had stolen the yachtsman's clothes to romance Monroe, he had to talk differently, "not the English of a Brooklyn musician."

Mr. Curtis offered to do Cary Grant, which he had learned from repeatedly watching "Gunga Din," the only movie aboard ship for a time while he was in the Navy.

"And it was a huge, wonderful plus for the picture," Wilder said. "I did not know he could do such a perfect imitation."

In 1960, Mr. Curtis starred with Douglas in the swashbuckling "Spartacus," a box-office hit notable for the bathtub scene that didn't appear in the original but was restored in the 1991 re-release. In the scene, Laurence Olivier, playing a Roman general, tries to seduce Mr. Curtis, the young slave, in dialogue alluding to one's preference for oysters or snails. (Because the original scene had not been recorded properly, Anthony Hopkins dubbed the dialogue for Olivier, who died in 1989. "I did me," Mr. Curtis said of the restoration.)

Unlike many who rose to his heights only to decry having to live their lives in a fishbowl, Mr. Curtis enjoyed fame and its accouterments.

Writing in his autobiography, he said he was able to handle the adulation of fans because, "I'd had that all my life, even before I got into movies; in school, in the neighborhoods where I lived, always a lot of furor. Everybody liked the way I looked, including myself."

Women loved him, and he loved women. He reportedly was married six times, most famously to Leigh in 1951, in the Hollywood marriage of their era — bigger than Debbie and Eddie and long before Liz and Dick. The Curtises were married 11 years.

In addition to Jamie Lee Curtis, he had five other children; one, a son, died in 1994 of a drug overdose.

Information from The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Associated Press is included in this report.