by Tony Curtis
Jimmy was an incredibly nice person; in his case there was no difference between his lovable film persona and the man himself. When he showed up on the set for Winchester ’73, he came right over to me and said, “Hi, Tony, how are you?” You could almost hear the other guys standing around wondering, Why would Jimmy Stewart know this guy? They weren’t aware that I’d met Jimmy on my second day on the Universal lot, when I asked him if I could have my picture taken with him. Most guys would have forgotten all about a minor moment like that, but not Jimmy Stewart. He was a class act all the way.
The movie was shot mostly on the Universal lot and on some hilly property that Universal owned. Rock Hudson was in the film too, and we had a scene together up on top of a hill at the rear of a big country estate. Rock played the Indian carrying the gun of the movie title when he gets shot by actor Jay C. Flippen. I played a cavalry officer, and my job was to run up the hill, only to find Rock with the rifle in his hand, stone dead.
Shelley Winters was also in the movie. There had been no change in her manner since last we’d met, meaning that she was very unfriendly to everybody, including me. I observed how negatively people reacted to her, which was a very useful lesson for me. When I was on the set, I was determined to enjoy every minute of what I was doing and to make it fun for everyone else too. I felt that my success depended on it. This was how I expressed my insecurity. But Shelley had a different take on it; she preferred to act high and mighty, always looking for an opportunity to push her career. This was how she expressed her insecurity. Unfortunately, Shelley had no idea how she was shooting herself in the foot. But I never complained about her. And the studio rewarded my efforts with a raise to two hundred and twenty-five dollars a week, which made taking care of my parents a little less stressful for me.
In my next movie, Kansas Raiders, I again played alongside war hero Audie Murphy. We shot most of our scenes on a back lot. I had very few lines, but I did a lot of horseback riding. I played a member of the Dalton gang, and Audie played Jesse James. Everybody—including me—was afraid of Audie. I didn’t feel that way about many people, but Audie was different. At the time, he was dating an actress named Peggy Castle, a girl I didn’t particularly like. One day I was walking down a corridor at Universal, and Audie grabbed me by the lapel and pulled my face down to his. He snarled, “Did you say anything bad about Peggy Castle? She told me you were talking bad about her.”
“No,” I said. “Believe me, Audie, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I didn’t like the way he was yanking me around, but I couldn’t help but think of all those Germans he had killed. Thankfully, he accepted my answer and walked away.
Audie was known to be temperamental and had a special reputation for being jealous. Less than two years earlier, he’d gotten married to the actress Wanda Hendrix, but their tempestuous marriage had ended in divorce. Audie once flew into a jealous rage that ended with him holding Wanda captive at gunpoint. It later came out that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of everything he’d been through in the war, but we didn’t even have a term for it then. All Wanda knew was that she wanted out.
As luck would have it, I started taking her out at around the same time that I was making Kansas Raiders with Audie. Wanda was a beautiful woman. She was petite, and she had a great figure and an exotic-looking face. She lived in the San Fernando Valley, so I picked her up in my green Buick convertible and drove her to a restaurant on the strip called Ciro’s. The windows were curved, and they gave you a great view of Sunset Boulevard. We had a wonderful dinner, but Wanda had an early call, so after dinner I drove her back home. We kissed some outside her door, but nothing more than that. It wasn’t the least bit serious. In the back of my mind, I wondered if Audie would be jealous if he found out, but I tried not to worry about it.
A couple of days after my date with Wanda, Audie and I were practicing our quick-draw technique for the film. We were working on an exercise called the handkerchief draw, where you and the person you’re drawing against each hold a bandana between your teeth. Whoever drops his bandana first can draw his gun first. In twenty tries I never once beat him. I would let my bandana go, and as I would go to pull my gun from its holster, his gun would already be in my stomach. On the twenty-first try, I dropped my handkerchief, he pulled his gun out and stuck it in my stomach—and then I heard a muffled explosion.
I looked down at myself and saw smoke; I smelled it too. I couldn’t believe it; Audie had found out about my date with Wanda, and he’d gut-shot me for it. I thought, Well, if I’m going to die, I might as well die making a movie. I fainted dead away.
The next thing I knew, I was under a tent with people gathered all around me. Audie was there too, apologizing for the prank he’d just pulled. He explained that he’d had a cap gun stuck in his belt behind his back. When he stuck his six-gun in my stomach, he’d used his free hand to reach behind and fire the cap gun, giving me the scare of my life. From then on, Audie was really nice to me, and we even became friends. But I never went out with Wanda Hendrix again.
Janet and Piper
With Piper Laurie, 1952.
In 1950, Universal wanted me to attend classes at the Actors Studio in LA. I went to one class and paid no attention. I was looking for girls. I had learned a lot from the Dramatic Workshop and my class at MGM, but I wasn’t a big fan of Method acting. As far as I was concerned, you didn’t need to make this more complicated than it was: you memorize your lines, you learn the subtleties of the part and what the director wants from you, and then you show up and act. You don’t have to think about your mother punching you in the mouth in order to bring anger into your performance. You’ve got to be able to turn it on and let it go, just like that.
The irony was that right after I took that class and ignored it completely, I became housemates with Marlon Brando, the poster boy for the Actors Studio. Marlon’s mother had been an actress in community theater in Chicago, and his older sister Jocelyn had gone to New York to work in the theater, so he had been exposed to acting and drama from a very early age. Marlon’s father sent him to military school, and that was where he took his first acting classes. Kicked out of military school because he couldn’t stand the regimentation, Marlon followed his sister to New York and studied at the New School and the Actors Studio. Then he began his own career on Broadway, impressing critics and audiences in I Remember Mama. Next he wowed everyone—including me—as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire.
Then, early in 1950, Marlon was cast in The Men for Warner Bros., his first movie role. He played a paraplegic war veteran. During the time when he was filming The Men, he and I lived together in a house on Barham Boulevard. He was a big Broadway star who was fast becoming a movie star, and I was still a player of bit parts, but Marlon enjoyed my company and treated me as an equal, which meant a lot to me.
I loved living in that house with him, and I even enjoyed Marlon’s eccentricities. I knew he was really happy when he’d pull out a pan from the drawer and beat a rhythm on it. If we were the Odd Couple, I was Felix and Marlon was Oscar. He’d come in and throw his coat down, grab a beer from the fridge, and lie down on the couch. He acted like he was the boss, but for some reason that never bothered me. If he didn’t clean up or take out the garbage, I’d do it. No big deal. Marlon didn’t like to drive, so he’d tell girls he didn’t know how, and every now and then one of them would come by to pick him up.
Marlon was into yoga long before it became popular. He spent time every day doing yoga exercises out by our swimming pool. But he was into alcohol, too; he would drink and that led to trouble. Marlon would start drinking, get distracted, forget about the time, and disappear for half a day—even if the studio had a meeting or photo shoot scheduled. They never could keep track of him. And if something didn’t go his way, Marlon would blow up like a Hawaiian volcano.
Marlon was being represented by Jay Kanter, an important agent at MCA, Lew Wasserman’s talent agency. One day Jay ca
me by to take Marlon to the Racquet Club in Palm Springs, and Jay asked me to come along. Jay wanted Marlon out of LA for a few days because he was trying to get Marlon to relax and lay low for a little bit; that was how Jay and the studio tried to manage him. Marlon liked the idea that I was coming along, and he was fun to hang around with, so I said okay.
One night when we walked into the bar at the Racquet Club, we both noticed this great-looking girl sitting on a barstool, nursing a drink. As we walked over, she looked from Marlon to me, and never looked back at Marlon. I didn’t think much of it, but it must have left an impression on Marlon. Years later we were at a Hollywood party together, and when Marlon saw me, he raised his hand. The room fell silent. Marlon pointed to me and said, “There’s the only guy who ever took a girl away from me.”
Marlon was a monumental talent, a truly gifted actor. Much as I tried not to compare my career with his, it was difficult sometimes. In a weak moment I’d tell myself that if Universal had put me in classic movies instead of westerns or desert adventures, maybe I could have become a legendary actor too. But Marlon was unique. Instead of comparing myself with him, I was better off focusing on my own strengths—my exuberance for acting and my boyish charm—and overcoming my liabilities: I was insecure about my upbringing, my being Jewish, and my lack of education. I needed a big boost of confidence, and Marlon’s kindness to me helped with that. Of all the actors Marlon could have chosen to pal around with, he chose me, even though he was well on his way to becoming a legend and I was just that crazy kid with a lot of hair trying to make it in the movies.
When I was starting out I also got to be friends with another struggling actor by the name of James Dean. Not many people know that James Dean’s first speaking role was in Sailor Beware, a Martin and Lewis movie. Jerry Lewis played a boxer, and James Dean was his corner man. Soon after we became friends, Jimmy flew to New York to study acting with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. His first starring role was in East of Eden. The director, Elia Kazan, wanted Marlon, but the screenwriter, Paul Osborn, wanted Jimmy, and so did John Steinbeck, who wrote the book. When the movie came out in 1955, Jimmy became a star.
Jimmy and I used to go out to dinner together at a tropical-themed restaurant in Beverly Hills, and we’d sit there drinking mai tais and discussing our careers. We never spoke too much about his childhood. I knew he came out of the Midwest and that his early life was difficult and insular. He didn’t use his upbringing as a crutch or let it hold him back in any way, though; neither did Marlon. Unfortunately I did, and so did a lot of other actors. I wanted to be able to emulate Jimmy and Marlon in that way, but I didn’t know how.
Jimmy Dean had a kind of boyishness about him, as did I. The difference between us was that I never could get rid of my boyishness, but he could. He could become very tough and hard-bitten on screen. I liked that about him. I said to myself, If I could find a way of tuning in to Jimmy’s attitude, it would make acting a lot easier.
I was devastated when Jimmy died. I needed friends like Marlon and Jimmy, guys I admired who also liked me back. It was so rare for me to run into guys my age who didn’t treat me like shit. Everyone knew I enjoyed the ladies, and a lot of guys were jealous of me for my successes in that department, but not Marlon or Jimmy.
In my second year at Universal I was dating a lot of actresses, one after another, but they were just dates, not relationships. Then in 1950 I met the actress Janet Leigh. Janet, who was born Jeanette Morrison, was so bright that she had finished high school at age fifteen. Even though she was only twenty-three when I met her, she had already been married—not once but twice. The first time came at the end of high school, when she and her boyfriend ran off together. When they returned home, her father had the marriage annulled. Then she married another young man when she was eighteen, but that marriage lasted only a couple of years.
Everything changed for Janet when she was twenty. That was the year that Norma Shearer, the wife of the late Irving Thalberg, the great movie producer, saw Janet’s picture in a magazine at a ski lodge. Norma got in touch with Janet and set her up with a contact at MGM, and the studio put Janet under contract. That was approximately the same time MGM signed Elizabeth Taylor, June Ally son, and a few other very talented young women. Janet was the embodiment of the high school sweetheart—so beautiful you couldn’t even imagine you’d ever be worthy of dating her; she looked like an impossible dream. Of course, Janet and the other girls didn’t have an easy time competing with Elizabeth Taylor, who had incredible allure. It wasn’t long before Elizabeth Taylor was getting any star role she wanted, which made it hard on the other young actresses at MGM.
To Janet’s credit, she did manage to get some good parts, despite dwelling in Elizabeth Taylor’s shadow. When I met Janet, she was making the movie Jet Pilot for Howard Hughes. We met at a party thrown by RKO that was open to any contract player in Hollywood. The idea was to attract as many actors as possible so that fan magazines would show up, take pictures, and do stories about the stars and RKO—and of course, the movie.
In Jet Pilot, Janet was playing a Russian fighter pilot, and she came to the party straight from shooting on the set. She had her hair pulled back, making her look sweet and vulnerable, and, boy, was I stunned by the way she looked. Although she had hardly any makeup on, she was very beautiful and seemed quite nice and pleasant. I was instantly drawn to her. I wasn’t sure how I would get her to notice me, but I had never let that stop me before. This time I decide on a direct approach: I walked right up to her and introduced myself.
At the time, Janet was living off Sunset Boulevard in a little house with her parents. Her father was also her business manager, which was often a tricky business. Word around town had it that Janet was going out with Arthur Loews Jr., of the Loews theater family. Arthur was a good-looking college boy with a ton of money, so I figured that if I even came up to bat, Arthur would be leading by a score of twenty to nothing.
Even worse, I soon found out that Janet was being pursued by Howard Hughes, who was not only Janet’s producer for Jet Pilot but was also just about the richest man in America. Howard had a reputation for going out of his way to have sex with many of Hollywood’s most famous actresses. The lengths he would go to were legendary.
According to one story, Howard became enamored of the star violinist of the Paris Symphony Orchestra, so to get her to come to Hollywood, he arranged for the Paris Symphony to perform the score for a movie he was producing. He flew the entire eighty-piece orchestra to Hollywood to record the music. Once the violinist got to Hollywood, Greg Bautzer, Hughes’s attorney, warned her not to sleep with Hughes, but she didn’t listen. The day after they went to bed, Hughes canceled the orchestra’s contract for the movie and flew the entire orchestra back to France. He had satisfied his desire, and that was the end of that.
This was the man who had set his sights on Janet Leigh. He wanted her in Jet Pilot so badly that he reportedly gave her father the right to act as an insurance broker in a deal in which Hughes took out a two-hundred-thousand-dollar policy. Janet’s father got some dough, Janet got to be in Hughes’s movie, and Hughes got what he wanted: a chance to be with Janet.
At the party where I met Janet, I also saw Hughes, although I didn’t realize it at the time. I remember seeing an odd-looking man wearing tennis shoes. Back then no one wore tennis shoes unless they were playing tennis, but Howard Hughes was different. He did what he wanted. And what he wanted now was to be with Janet. He’d already been with so many other famous, talented, beautiful women; who was Janet to turn him down? But when I asked her for her number, for some reason she gave it to me. I don’t know why. I suppose I sounded sincere in my interest, which I most certainly was.
So, against all odds, Janet and I started going out, but as long as she was working on Jet Pilot, I couldn’t shake the feeling she was still dating Hughes. One night at about nine thirty I drove to the RKO studios to pick her up after work. She had said she had some dubbing to do that evening. W
hen I pulled up at the spot where we’d arranged to meet, I saw a tall guy standing in the shadows, wearing tennis shoes. Who else could it be but Hughes? The guy was like a ghost—a rich, powerful ghost, that is. He had the clout to get Universal to drop me with a single phone call, if he wanted to. That was the least of it. He had such a reputation for ruthlessness that I was actually concerned he might have me bumped off. I decided to give Janet some room until I knew for certain that the road was clear (although I don’t really think I had a choice in the matter). After she was through with Jet Pilot, I guess she was through with him—or he with her—and we started going out regularly.
It didn’t take me long to fall in love with Janet. We had a wonderful time together, although from the beginning she was the one who dictated all the moves. She, like most people I met in Hollywood, had more self-confidence than I did. I didn’t dare initiate anything. I was happy just to be with her. Unfortunately, not everyone was so pleased about it. I had earlier dated an actress named Suzan Ball, a beautiful girl under contract to Universal who was Lucille Ball’s second cousin. We went out a few times, but it didn’t really go anywhere, which was the norm for me before I got together with Janet. Then, one night after I started dating Janet, Suzan saw me across the Universal lot and yelled to me, “Hi, Mr. Leigh, how’s it going?”
I suppose she could have meant a lot of different things by that, but to me it sounded as if she was accusing me of going out with Janet for the publicity, or perhaps insinuating that Janet wore the pants in our relationship. The former certainly wasn’t true, but there might have been some truth in the latter—at least at first. Sadly, that was the last time I saw Suzan. Later she was injured while filming a dancing scene in the movie East of Sumatra. When the doctors examined her injured knee, they were surprised to find cancer, and the leg had to be amputated. Not long after that she married my friend, the actor Richard Long, but she died soon afterward at the tragically young age of twenty-one.
