by Tony Curtis
The first time I was called Tony Curtis in print was in August 1950. Hedda Hopper, the famous gossip columnist, had been giving me coverage as Anthony. Suddenly she decided to use the name I preferred. Still, it wasn’t until the release of Kansas Raiders in November 1950 that I was billed as Tony Curtis. But I was on my way.
And the girls knew it. I had lots of experiences. In those days I never knew what would happen when I went out with a girl. Sometimes we’d just neck, and sometimes things would lead to sex. I was fine with whatever happened. I was happy if they seemed to like me. One girl lived in a house that had a porch. We’d be out there ’til all hours kissing, but no more. That was it. Maybe if I had pushed for it, we could have had a romance, but I wasn’t ready for that, at least not with her. I didn’t want to lose out on all those others.
I was twenty-five and having so much fun that I couldn’t believe it. To convince myself it was really happening, I made entries in a journal. I’d always liked putting my thoughts down on paper. Sometimes I wrote poems. In 1950 I was keeping a coded journal, recording the experiences I was having with the girls I was meeting.
It helped that I was driving a convertible. I’d had to buy three before I got a good one. The first one I got from a used car lot on Lankershim Boulevard. It was a dark green 1935 Chevy. The odometer was stuck at 183,000 miles, and there was a hole in the floor. The second one was a maroon Mercury. The third one was the charm. It was a light green Buick with white sidewall tires and Dynaflow Drive, which was a fancy name for an inefficient kind of automatic transmission. Looking back on it, I can see how L.A. that car was. I loved to cruise onto the Universal lot in it and park where everyone could see it. One day I was strolling by the studio guard post near the gate. The guard called me over.
“Did you see that girl?”
“Yeah,” I answered. “I saw her.”
Who hadn’t? She was breathtaking. She was wearing a filmy blouse, and you could see her bra through it. When she walked down the street next to the Writers Building, heads leaned out of screen doors at crazy angles. Her beauty made her look unapproachable, but her smile sent a different message. She and I looked about the same age, but I later found out that she was a year younger. We had almost the same birthday. Mine was June 3. Hers was June 1.
“She didn’t drive in,” the guard said. “Be down here in twenty minutes.”
I pulled up in my convertible, ready. And there she came, right on schedule. I got out and walked up to her.
“Hi. My name is Tony.”
“My name is Marilyn.”
“I’m driving into town,” I said. “Can I give you a lift?”
She paused and looked at me for a minute. “Okay.”
We walked to my car and I opened the door for her. I got behind the wheel, drove out the gate, and turned left, heading for Hollywood. I angled the rearview mirror a little so I could see her face. To my surprise she winked at me. We laughed. Nice.
There was something about having her in the car with me like that. Something extraordinary. She had an aura of sweetness and warmth. But as we made small talk, I felt something else. Heat. Sexual heat. I’d never felt anything like it. I remember exactly how she looked, with kind of reddish hair pulled back in a pony-tail. She wasn’t wearing a lot of makeup like girls did then, just a little lipstick and mascara. It was a summer outfit she had on, and it lay on her body in just the right way. I could make out the outline of her thighs, her back, and her breasts. Maybe it was goofy, but I fixated on her arms. They were beautifully shaped.
Now that I think of that day in my car, it seems quaint. Two kids, both aspiring to be movie stars. I’d gotten my break. She was waiting for hers. After a while, we didn’t talk. We just rode along. I dropped her at a hotel where she was staying. It was the Beverly Carlton, a new hotel on Olympic Boulevard and Canon Drive. I thought it was kind of pretentious. She thanked me for the ride. I asked her if I could call her.
“If you like,” she answered and wrote down her number on a piece of scratch paper. Then she got out, smiled, and walked into the building.
For the next few days I kept thinking about her, about her arms, and how she looked at me in the mirror. To tell you the truth, I couldn’t think of anything else. But I didn’t dare call. Not that soon. I didn’t want to look desperate, and besides, a girl who looked like that had to be taken. For all I knew she was married. I hadn’t seen a ring, though. Anyway, a week passed. I called her. “Hi, it’s me, Tony, from Universal. Would you like to go out to dinner?”
A few nights later I picked up Marilyn at her hotel. I didn’t ask why she was living there. I think she appreciated that. We drove to a restaurant on the Sunset Strip, the Villa Nova. We enjoyed the food and we chatted, avoiding anything serious. Before I took her home, we went for a spin on Sunset. It was an elegant street then. We had a fairly good time, which meant that there would be a second date. There was. It took place at a swanky club called the Mocambo. When we walked in, heads turned. Why not? We were a couple of healthy young animals. I was in a white linen suit and Marilyn was in a flowered dress. She hadn’t yet got that knockout look, but make no mistake, she was fabulous. It was a weeknight, so the club wasn’t crowded. But Marilyn kept looking around, as if she were expecting to see someone—or be seen by someone.
I wasn’t aware of the tangled involvements Marilyn had, even this early. She was being privately sponsored by Joseph Schenck. (He was one of the original Hollywood moguls, the founder of Twentieth Century-Fox, and in his seventies.) She was being tutored by a drama coach, Natasha Lytess, who had an unrequited crush on her. She was being pursued by a voice coach and composer named Fred Karger. She was represented by an agent named Johnny Hyde, who was also infatuated with her. All these individuals were older by at least twenty years. What was she looking for? A patron? A protector? A parent? Maybe so. When I later heard about her background, I felt that here was someone whose childhood was more fucked up than mine.
Marilyn’s mother was kind of a floozy. She worked as a negative cutter at a film lab in Hollywood. That was the first strike. A lot of those broads were drunks. She couldn’t raise Marilyn, so she put her in a foster home until she was seven. Poor Marilyn thought those were her real parents. Then her mother took her back just before having a breakdown and being put in a loony ward. Marilyn went through two more homes. One of them was with her mom’s friend, a character who brainwashed Marilyn to think that she was going to be the next Jean Harlow. What a role model for a frightened kid. But Marilyn bought it.
After marrying some young guy just to get away from the series of foster homes, Marilyn went to work at a wartime factory. And that’s where it started. A photographer was doing a piece on Rosie the Riveter types and saw how well Marilyn photographed. The next thing you know, she was modeling. Twentieth signed her and lost her. Columbia did the same thing. Then she started meeting the Svengalis. When I met her, she was on the verge of stardom, but not there. And she knew it.
During our dates we’d talk about the movie business. Marilyn wanted to know about the people I’d met, how I’d met them, how I’d handled myself, everything. When I related what I was going through, she listened attentively, but when I asked about her, she didn’t reciprocate. I didn’t push her to open up. I knew better.
Marilyn was abstract. She didn’t read the papers. She didn’t watch newsreels. She was unrelated to what was going on in the world. Even as early as that, everyone around her was trying to get to her. But there was no way to get to her. There was no way in.
“Would you like some ice cream, Marilyn?”
“No.”
“Don’t you like ice cream?”
“I didn’t like my mother.”
What did that mean? That’s how she talked sometimes, in non sequiturs. In her own language. You couldn’t understand her. You couldn’t get to her. Because she didn’t want to be gotten to. And at that point, it didn’t really matter. I was fascinated. I didn’t need to take her apart and put her b
ack together again. I just wanted to be close to her. But I couldn’t bring her to Sycamore House. And I couldn’t go to her hotel, which had the same kind of rules as the Studio Club. After our dinner dates, we’d drive to the beach, sit in the convertible, and watch the waves. We’d neck a little, but I always returned Marilyn to her hotel.
I was friends with the actor Howard Duff, who’d gone from being a radio star on The Adventures of Sam Spade to being a movie star in The Naked City. Howard had a beach house outside Malibu. He was a generous guy. “Use the house,” he said. “I’m only there on the weekends.” That was all I needed to hear. I called Marilyn. She agreed to go to the beach; that was all I prepared her for.
I picked her up at the Beverly Carlton. We headed out the Pacific Coast Highway and had dinner at a drive-in restaurant that served not only hamburgers, but also steaks and cocktails. By this time, the sun was setting. Even though I considered myself experienced with girls, I was feeling a bit nervous. I didn’t want to look obvious, like I was taking her to the beach just to lie with her. This was a girl I didn’t want to offend. We spread blankets on the sand. It was sweet. We just talked. She wanted to know more about me. I told her I had an actor friend who said we could use his place some time. She was open to the notion, so we went there.
Howard’s beach house was a kind of bungalow. It was small and cozy with a fireplace and a little bar. There were bottles of whiskey and vodka. I offered Marilyn a drink, but I didn’t really know much about mixology. She could see that, so she helped me make Scotch and sodas. We sipped them a little politely, it seemed, and then she started to talk about herself.
When she was a child, her mother had gotten ill. She never mentioned a father. She’d had various names. She’d been through a lot. I felt for her. It sounded like her life had improved in some respects but still wasn’t that fulfilling. There was a lot of need there. She thought she could fill it by becoming a movie star. That was her overriding concern, it seemed to me, maybe because it was mine, too. There was a lull in the conversation. Then we started to kiss. We fondled each other a little while. That was the extent of it. I drove her home and went back to Sycamore. The next few times I called to make a date, she told me she was busy.
I was disappointed. I liked Marilyn. I enjoyed her company. If she was a little odd, that was okay. So was I. We were both trying to project self-confidence. It was just an act. Inside, we weren’t comfortable. We were constantly worrying about what people thought of us. We hadn’t found peace of mind, and we didn’t know how to go about it. We were scared. I guess when you’re in your twenties, that’s how it is. You’ve got an adult body, but you’re trying to make it work with a kid’s emotions. With Marilyn and me, it was worse. Our kid emotions didn’t even work. We’d been treated too poorly. I guess she sensed that about me. Maybe that’s why she pulled away from me at this point. After a while, though, she called me and asked how I was doing.
We met for lunch at the Twentieth Century-Fox commissary. If you had a contract with one studio, you could eat at any studio commissary in town. I particularly liked eating at MGM, where I’d had some coaching. One day at the counter I met Judy Garland, just like that. She couldn’t have been nicer. When I went on the date with Marilyn, people’s heads swiveled. And this was in the commissary, where you saw nothing but gorgeous people. She had something, no doubt. I wondered how it made her feel to turn heads wherever she went.
I asked Howard Duff about using his house again. He was fine with it. On the way to Marilyn’s hotel, I picked up a couple of steaks. Howard’s garden had a little grill. I amazed myself that I was able to cook the steaks without having the fire go out. This was new to me. Marilyn helped me with the vegetables. When I opened a bottle of Howard’s wine, I spilled some of it on us, but we got past that and had a leisurely dinner. After we finished, we went outside to watch the moonlight on the water. We were quiet. There was something in the air. Something between us. Anticipation. A suppressed excitement. That feeling you get that makes your legs feel weak and strong at the same time. I knew something was going to happen. So did Marilyn.
Around two o’clock in the morning we went into the bedroom. I pulled off my shirt. Marilyn stripped down to her panties and bra. Then she sat down on the edge of the bed. I looked at her. She was magnificent. I sat down next to her. We started to kiss and caress each other. I undid her bra. Her breasts were beautifully shaped. We began to make love.
Being with Marilyn was satisfying, so satisfying. The experience was more than just being with a new girl. There was something about her, a mixture of power and vulnerability. It made her unique. Even at this stage of her life, there was something indefinable about her, a sensual presence. It made her lovemaking remarkable.
After this, our first time together, Marilyn and I continued to see each other. She made it clear, though, that we couldn’t be seen in public. I could understand that. She was on her way up. I was, too, and what I did in private was my business, not the studio’s. Then, as now, Hollywood was a hotbed of gossip. I mentioned Hedda Hopper earlier. She helped me, yes, by mentioning me in her column. But if I’d had information about somebody and didn’t give it to her, that would have been the end of my progress. That’s how those gossip columnists were—Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, Walter Winchell, and Sidney Skolsky, that creepy little guy who attached himself to Marilyn like the parasite that he was. So Marilyn and I had to keep a low profile. I’d pick her up after dark and drive her to Howard’s with the top up.
Looking back on that time, I know that Marilyn was the first woman I truly felt close to. She was my first adult relationship. It was a beautiful, precious thing. We came to depend on each other in a funny kind of way, like two kids coming to summer camp and trying to figure it out together. Our feelings were genuine. Sadly, they couldn’t survive the pressure cooker of Hollywood life. There were too many demands on us. I was making pictures back to back. She was studying and trying to make contacts. We were just too young to embark on a serious relationship. I often wonder what would have happened if I’d met her at the factory where she was working only a few years earlier, if I’d been a shift worker, too. Maybe we would have had a chance. But not two kids hell-bent on stardom. I was preoccupied with Universal, and she was searching for the older man who could both replace her father and shine a spotlight on her. That sure as hell wasn’t me. But for the short time that we were together, we had a sweet, intense connection. I’ll never forget it.
About four years later, I was at a Hollywood party and all of a sudden I saw Marilyn in the distance. We got closer, and the first thing she said was, “What happened to your green convertible?” I laughed, and as I was laughing I marveled at how she’d evolved, this blond beauty, so glazed and poised. Was this the same girl? Yes and no. There’d been changes—in both of us. And, as I’d discover on the set of Some Like It Hot, those changes hadn’t brought peace of mind.
7
The idea of working with Marilyn Monroe on Some Like It Hot excited me. And made me a little anxious. Would the old feelings resurface? I was married. She was married. Arthur Miller was the playwright famous for All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, and The Crucible. By this time, their marriage was not a happy one. Like mine, it was publicized as happy. In actuality it was something else. Marilyn had thought that by marrying this brainy guy, she could move into a different arena and turn her back on Hollywood. For the last two years, she’d tried that. She’d formed her own production company and made a picture in England with Laurence Olivier, The Prince and the Showgirl. But it didn’t do that well and didn’t open any doors. And besides, she owed Twentieth Century-Fox some pictures. She tried to escape but couldn’t.
I later learned that Marilyn had had a miscarriage in August 1957. I’d heard there were problems because of the abortions she’d had earlier. That was probably gossip. She’d had a series of ectopic pregnancies, where the fetus develops in the fallopian tube instead of in the uterus. She’d had surgery to correct this bu
t still couldn’t have a normal pregnancy. The latest miscarriage was the worst. It caused her to be depressed. She stayed in her bed, unable to motivate herself to get up and get dressed. She would lie around without any clothes on and eat all kinds of fattening foods.
Marilyn was already in the habit of drinking either Bloody Marys or champagne in the morning. She had terrible insomnia. She was taking barbiturates called Amytal and Nembutal. She was careless. She overdosed twice in early 1958. Her stomach had to be pumped. There was an accident in late March. She stumbled down a flight of stairs and cut herself on a broken drinking glass. It had contained alcohol. During this time she was pulling away from Miller. He tried to reach her, but he couldn’t. She withdrew. He stayed in his study, fighting writer’s block.
MGM offered Marilyn a project with Frank Sinatra called Some Came Running. Twentieth offered her a film of the musical comedy Can-Can. She couldn’t make up her mind. But she was trying to improve it. She was seeing a psychiatrist every morning, and she was studying with Lee Strasberg every afternoon. When Billy Wilder heard that she was going to the Actors Studio, he said, “If Marilyn wants to go to school, she should go to engineering school and learn to run on time.”
Marlon Brando came from the Actors Studio. We were roommates for four months in a little house on Barham Boulevard. I’d heard about Method acting from him. I respected him. But I wasn’t interested in the Method. He was great because he was Marlon, not because of the Method. I thought it was phony. Why complicate the job of acting? Memorize your lines. Learn the part. Find out what the director wants. Then show up on time and act. This idea of trying to remember when your sister stole your peanut butter sandwich so you can give an angry performance is bullshit. If you can’t turn it on by yourself, you don’t belong in front of a camera.
I heard that Strasberg was exploiting Marilyn. She was desperate to get out of the dumb blonde mold. Strasberg played on her desperation, telling her that no one understood how intelligent she was. But he did. Oh, yeah. And it cost her. She became dependent on him and his wife, Paula. They were the ones who told her she had to see a psychiatrist—and they supplied the psychiatrist. Miller despised them, but he put up with them. In his own way he was manipulating Marilyn, too. She was constantly being pushed or pulled by somebody. She wasn’t strong enough to stand alone. After a childhood without a mother or a father, how could she?
