American Prince

by Tony Curtis

  I was thirty-seven when we married, and Christine, at eighteen, was too old for me. She was such a special person. No other woman in my life—certainly none of those Hollywood girls, including Janet—had ever been so sweet and generous with me. I was madly in love with Christine. It was a wonderful, almost magical, experience.

  Christine’s mother was adamantly opposed to the wedding. She didn’t like the idea of her daughter going with a Jew. She told me Christine was going to be a great star, that one day she would light up the sky in Germany, and I should stay away from her. But one day Christine’s mother came to me and said she needed money; if I gave her ten thousand dollars, she told me, she would end her opposition to the marriage. I gave her the money and I said, “Stay out of my way.” She did.

  I was nervous about meeting Christine’s father, because he’d been a German air force pilot during World War II, but he was nicer to me than her French mother was.

  My wedding attracted a lot of press, and none of it was good. Most stories took the angle that Tony Curtis was abandoning his family to marry a teenager. It hurt, but there was nothing we could do about it. If a magazine wanted to interview you for a story and you turned them down, they were even nastier than they would be otherwise, so I just met with reporters and did the best I could. The studio decided that the best way to make the furor over our marriage go away was to put Christine and me in a movie together, so we signed on to act in a film called Wild and Wonderful, in which a poodle creates all sorts of marital problems for us.

  Christine’s mother was her agent, and at first she felt this film wasn’t good enough for her daughter. I talked to Christine and shared my Hollywood philosophy: Make as many movies as you can. If a movie’s a hit, great. If it isn’t, so what? You get paid either way, and, more important, you never know whether a movie will be good or bad until after you’ve made it. After Lew Wasserman advised her to do the movie, Christine finally agreed.

  Wild and Wonderful turned out to be a very amusing movie. Christine was terrific in it. There were moments in it when sparks flew between us, and we enjoyed the experience. In the movie, I was trying to romance her, but I was bedeviled by her dog, a French poodle that was constantly peeing on my leg. In the movie the dog hated me because he saw me as a rival for Christine’s affections. This was uncomfortably close to real life, where, instead of a dog, it was her mother who wanted me to shove off. The dog stole the show, emerging as the real star of the picture. I liked that dog so much that when the movie was over, Christine and I got a dog just like him.

  Wild and Wonderful turned out to be Christine’s last movie for some time. I didn’t know it at first, but I found out that Christine wanted to focus on being a wife and mother, and was willing to put her career on hold. When her mother found this out, she went crazy. But it was a good thing for my new marriage. And after she gave birth to two beautiful children, Alexandra and Allegra, Christine was more convinced than ever that she had made the right decision.

  Once I married Christine, my life settled down. I had to start over financially, but I was making good money, and for the first time in a long while, I was happy.

  Top of the World

  With Susan Hampshire in Those Daring Young Men in Their

  Jaunty Jalopies, 1969.

  Goodbye Charlie, the next movie I did for Twentieth Century Fox, starred Walter Matthau, Debbie Reyn olds, and me. Like Some Like It Hot, it had a plot that revolved around ambiguous sexuality. Walter, a jealous husband, shoots a no-good philanderer who’s messing around with his wife. The philanderer dies but returns to Earth in the body of a woman, played by Debbie. I play the philanderer’s best friend, and after he “dies” I meet Debbie and fall in love with her—which means I’m really falling in love with my best friend. If you think this sounds like a perfect movie for a gay audience, you wouldn’t be wrong. Happily, the picture was a big hit all across the board.

  The director was Vincente Minnelli, who, even though he had been married to Judy Garland, was rumored to be gay. Big fucking deal. Who gave a shit? All I knew was that he was a refined, reserved man, and a great film director, with a broad knowledge of movies and filmmaking. What I remember most about the movie was the bickering between Vincente Minnelli and Ellen McRae, a Broadway actress just starting out in the movies, who later married and became Ellen Bur styn. The two of them were so regularly at each other’s throats that I would come to work thinking, Here we go again. I felt like I was back home with my parents. I would always side with Vincente in his battles with Ellen, or with anyone else on the set. I liked him. Every once in a while someone would try to demean him by calling him a “faggot” (not to his face), and I’d make a point of not letting that pass.

  Donna Michelle, the 1964 Playboy Playmate of the Year, was also in the film, and the other girls in the film responded to her presence in ways that were less than hospitable. In fact, they were downright cruel. They always seemed to find some way to step on her lines or do something to distract her at a crucial moment. Debbie Reynolds was their ringleader. For once I was lucky just to be the leading man. Pat Boone was my only competitor in the film, and Pat was just what he seemed like: a really nice, friendly guy.

  One day I was on the phone with Joseph Heller, whose classic novel, Catch-22, had been a recent bestseller, and he said to me, “Hey, Tony. I’m going to write a movie treatment for Sex and the Single Girl. How would you like to star in that?” With my friend Dick Quine directing and Jack Warner of Warner Bros. hot to do it, I quickly said yes.

  When I was a kid, I used to go see Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland in The Adventures of Robin Hood and all those other great movies Warner Bros. made in those days. Little did I know that one day I would be in a Warner Bros. picture myself. This was another one of those moments when I had to pinch myself. I had always told myself that my life would turn out like this, that it was supposed to happen this way, but I couldn’t help but be surprised and delighted that it had. If you remember, Jack Warner and I had met and made a good connection on that very first plane trip I took to Hollywood. In those early years I would sometimes see him at parties, but we rarely connected. One time, though, when he was visiting Universal, he saw me in the commissary and called me over to his table.

  Jack said, “Hi, Tony. Good to see you. Say, have you ever met your boss?”

  “No, I haven’t,” I replied.

  Jack turned to the man sitting next to him. “This is Bill Goetz,” he said, “and he’s your boss.” Goetz and I smiled at each other and shook hands. Not only had I never met Goetz, I’d never even heard of him.

  Sex and the Single Girl was based on a book written by Helen Gurley Brown, but the movie had nothing to do with the book. Joe Heller took the title and then wrote a story about a female publisher of a smutty magazine who happened to be a virgin. That character was played by Natalie Wood. In what I thought was an odd bit of casting, the studio hired Henry Fonda to play a Jewish clothing factory owner. Fonda was as far from being Jewish as a man could be, but I didn’t say anything. His wife was played by Lauren Bacall, who was Jewish, although nobody knew that at the time.

  I had known Natalie for ages. Janet and I often saw Natalie and her husband, Robert Wagner (known as R.J.), at all those Hollywood parties we went to. They remained happily married until she fell in love with her agent, Richard Gregson, and ran off with him. R.J.’s heart was broken. I saw him at a party one night not long after that, and it was obvious he hadn’t eaten or slept properly. I felt so bad for him. I put my arm around R.J.’s shoulder and said, “Listen, things are going to get better. There are a lot of good-looking girls in this town. Don’t worry about it.” He kind of smiled. During that time he often stayed with friends, including me, rather than staying at home alone. That was one way we all took care of each other.

  Natalie, meanwhile, had gone off to England with her agent lover, but she returned to make Sex and the Single Girl. She and I were costars, and it was sheer pleasure to be working with a friend
who also happened to be an outstanding actress and a wonderful comedienne. I never had to worry about the leading lady giving me what I needed in our scenes together. When two actors are in sync, one throws the line, and the other one carries it. Forget the director; forget the way the script is written. Forget all of that. The relationship between the actors is what’s most important to a movie’s chemistry.

  Around this time I realized it was time for me to find a new agent. The trouble was that when Lew Wasserman had stopped agenting to run Universal, he had left behind impossibly large shoes to fill. One day when I was visiting Christine in Germany, we went to see a movie, and a man sat down next to me. I looked over and was amazed to see that it was an agent from MCA.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, my surprise making me less than tactful.

  “I called Christine’s house and her parents said you were at the theater, so I came down here to find you. I’m here to see if you’d like to be my client.”

  I didn’t answer, and although I took his business card, I never called him. I knew that particular agent’s reputation, and he wasn’t for me. A number of Lew’s MCA colleagues—Arthur Parks, Jay Kanter, Jerry Gershwin—were available, but I decided to go outside the agency to pick the best-known Hollywood literary agent at the time, Irving Lazar. Irving, who went by the nickname “Swifty,” took only four-star clients. He represented mostly writers; in fact, I was the only actor he handled. There was nobody like Lew, but Swifty was intelligent and wise, and I felt like I was in good hands.

  After I did Sex and the Single Girl for Warner Bros., Jack Warner wanted me to be in another picture called The Great Race. He said he wouldn’t make the picture unless I was in it. Blake Edwards was the director, and he wanted Robert Wagner to play my role, but Jack Warner had overruled him. Blake then suggested George Peppard or Burt Lancaster, but Jack kept saying no; he wanted me, and he wouldn’t make the movie without me. It upset me that Blake didn’t want me for the film. I figured it was some weird holdover from our tests of manhood during the making of Operation Petticoat. Or perhaps the assertive way I had sought Blake out and asked him for the part in Breakfast at Tiffany’s had left him feeling uncomfortable. There was no way of knowing for sure without asking him, and I had no intention of doing that. The important thing was this: as long as Jack Warner wanted me in the picture, Blake was the one who was going to have to make the adjustments.

  Irving Lazar went to see Jack to make my deal, knowing that Jack Lemmon and Blake Edwards had signed to do the film for a hundred thousand dollars each. Irving told Jack Warner, “Tony won’t work for that. You have to do better.” And Jack did, by twenty-five thousand. Then Irving said, “You can’t give Tony a raise and not do the same for Blake and Jack Lemmon,” and Jack Warner said, “You’re right.” So everybody got a nice raise, thanks to Irving.

  If someone had done that for me, I’d have gone over to his house with roses, saying, “Thank you for what you’ve done for me.” But I never heard a word from either Jack Lemmon or Blake. Times like this left me feeling alone, and perplexed. Was I way off base in my expectations, or was there some difference between Gentiles and Jews at work here that I didn’t understand? Was this how blacks felt in a white world? There seemed to be a sense of entitlement that came naturally to Hollywood’s ruling elite, but it never came naturally to me. No matter how well I did, I always felt like an outsider.

  As it turned out, Irving Lazar not only got me a boost in salary, he also got me a piece of the film. After the movie came out, I got a small check every month. So far I’ve gotten more than two hundred thousand dollars in royalties from Warner Bros. for The Great Race. And I made sure to let Irving know how much I appreciated his efforts on my behalf!

  Natalie Wood played the leading lady in the movie. She really didn’t want to do it, but Natalie owed Warner Bros. a picture, and when her agent couldn’t get her out of it, she really had no choice. By this time she had been nominated for three Oscars—for Rebel Without a Cause, Splendor in the Grass, and Love with the Proper Stranger—and had starred in two acclaimed musicals, West Side Story and Gypsy. Natalie was not part of Swifty’s deal with Warner Bros., so I was surprised when her agent came to me and asked if I would give Natalie a percentage of what I was getting.

  “I don’t know why I would do that,” I replied.

  He said, “Because Natalie’s in the movie.”

  I declined, thinking perhaps he could have come up with a more persuasive rationale. Truth is, I had never heard of asking an actor to give part of his or her salary to another actor. Natalie was a friend and an asset to the movie, but if she was having trouble getting properly paid for her work, that certainly had nothing to do with my financial picture.

  In the movie Jack Lemmon played the bad guy, and I played the good guy, but we were more like Laurel and Hardy—and Blake Edwards loved Laurel and Hardy. It was the first time Jack and I had worked together since Some Like It Hot, and we picked up as though it had been yesterday. Jack and I understood each other’s gifts so well that we were like one person. If I was in a scene with Jack, he knew I had his back, and I knew he had mine. Neither of us ever did anything to take the focus off each other on the screen, and we complemented each other beautifully.

  Production of The Great Race was marred by constant tension between Jack Warner and Blake Edwards. (Are you beginning to get the idea that filmmaking can be a contentious business?) Early on, Jack even fired Blake, and the studio publicly announced that Jack was taking Blake off the project, but Natalie and I defended Blake. I didn’t claim to understand the man, but I did appreciate his ability to get the best out of actors. We never heard a harsh word from him; he knew how to get us to give him what he wanted without ever demeaning us or acting abusive. All the actors and some of the crew felt the same way, so we approached Jack and told him we wouldn’t work unless he reinstated Blake. Jack capitulated to our demands and reinstated Blake on the film, although I suspect Jack was going to do that anyway. After letting Blake twist in the wind a bit, Jack put him back on the picture. I think he was just trying to let Blake know that Jack Warner was still in charge.

  Once we started filming The Great Race, something happened between Natalie and me that often happened with my female costars. Natalie warmed up toward me, and we began to feel a strong attraction for each other. In one scene she was lying on my lap on a couch, and at the end of the scene, Blake yelled, “Cut!” Then Natalie sat up, moved up close to me, and affectionately toyed with a lock of my hair, so I kissed her on the lips. With that, she put her hand behind my head and pulled me down close to her. We just nuzzled each other for a few moments, indifferent to the people around us, and I felt a deep, delicate warmth move through me. Up until then I had been trying very hard not to get goose bumps from Natalie Wood. So much for that.

  Now I felt a strong desire to be with Natalie, just to be near her. Every time the camera would stop, I would go over to her and start talking nonstop. I’d ask her what she thought of the scene, what kinds of movies she wanted to make—just chitchat, anything to hear her voice. I felt exhilarated whenever she was around, just the way you feel when you’re falling hard for somebody new.

  At one point we were working on Stage 9, the big stage at Warner Bros. that included a giant lagoon for filming water scenes. Natalie and I were acting in a water sequence where we were both on an iceberg floating in the middle of the water. After the third day of shooting on the iceberg, we wrapped around five for a dinner break, and the assistant told us we’d start shooting again around seven that night.

  My trailer was right next to Natalie’s. It was going to be a long break, so there was no point staying in costume. I changed and went over to visit Natalie. I didn’t know why. I didn’t have an invitation. It just felt right.

  I knocked on the door. Her hairdresser came to the door and said over her shoulder, “It’s Tony.” I heard Natalie mumble something, and the woman said to me, “Come on in.” I stepped through the trailer
door, and the hairdresser said, “I’ll see you later,” and Natalie said, “Great.” The woman left.

  After I sat down on the couch, Natalie walked across to the trailer door and locked it. She came back to where I was sitting, sat down next to me, and kissed me deeply. It was a kiss that spoke of longing, a kiss that perfectly expressed the feeling that had been exquisitely building between us for weeks as we worked together.

  We both came up for air, and then she leaned forward and kissed me again. That was when I realized that she was naked under her robe. I tore off my jacket and shirt. I don’t remember how I got my pants off, but I must have, because the next thing I knew we were making crazy love on the sofa of that trailer. For me it was a highlight not just of working on that picture but of my entire life. We didn’t say anything, before, during, or after. Nor did we need to. It was perfect just the way it was. No explanations.

  After we finished shooting on the Warner Bros. lot, we all went to Salzburg, Austria, to shoot on location there. Natalie had someone she was interested in join her in Salzburg, so although she and I worked beautifully together for the rest of the shoot, neither of us ever spoke of our moment in her trailer. We still took every opportunity to talk and spend time together between shots, and it was always sweet and gentle, but what was between us remained unspoken.

  As things played out, the pace of our shooting schedule in Salzburg kept us from finding a time when we could be together again, and in truth that was fine with me. I was happily married to Christine, and our first child, Alexandra, had already been born. Once we were done shooting the picture, I went back to my life, and Natalie went back to hers, and we both knew that was best for both of us.