TONY CURTIS

1952

With the exception of some notorious great serious roles like Sweet Smell of Success, The Boston Strangler, phone cameo in Rosemary Baby, Spartacus or The Defiant Ones, Tony Curtis (born Bernard "Bernie" Schwartz in New York, 1925) was for me and since I was six years old the ultimate smiling heroe.

1958

So, here you have a nice gallery of old Tony Curtis movie posters. Some of those are the missing and missed films , some actually are out there. Take them as a preview of coming atractions or so we hope here, in Guelyland.

1961

1959

1967

1964

1960

Funnier then cool and usually from a humble origen (as in real life) he was always ready for a fight with fists or swords. And his hair was always the same no matter was playing a viking, a european knight, Harry Houdini, an arab, an american soldier, an ukranian farmer, a musician from the twenties or a gambler cowboy.

1955

1957

There are so many of his 50's and 60's movies not available yet on DVD (or VHS for that matter) that i only can recall to my childhood memories to see them. But little by little they are coming back.

1958

1953

1961

1957

Remember that, as I used to judge animal books by their presence or absence of jaguars, I would like or not a movie book because of the mention of the adventures of Tony Curtis. But then i didn't have so much access to movie books being six or seven years old. By 1972 The Persuaders was my favorite teve series side by side with Star Trek (Captain Kirk was somehow a more serious heroe.

1952

1955

After only one season of the european serie he kind of dissapeared from the big league of actors and never made a real comeback. Lost his trademark hair (and with that his self esteem), got in drugs and older (and with that bye bye boyish looks). Although he was a good actor, the people only wanted the star. Time was merciless with him as well.

1960

1955

But isn't that the ironic magic with the movies? That you can always be dashing and young forever, as long as you keep yourself in the screen?. Older movies kept him young new movies showed him old.

1963

1954

1964

1953

Correct me if I'm wrong but apart from Kirk Douglas (they shared the screen twice, in Spartacus and The Vikings) All the big guys (that excludes Mickey Rooney) from the Big Hollywood Studio era are gone.

1951

1964

1965

1966

1966

So, Tony is a survivor. An 85 year old survivor. And somehow that makes me happy, at least for a while.