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TONY CURTIS Tony Curtis (born June 3, 1925) is an American film actor. He is best known for light comic roles, especially his musician on the run from gangsters in Some Like It Hot (1959) with Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe. Over the years he has also assayed more serious dramatic roles, such as his escaped convict in The Defiant Ones (1958), for which he received an Academy Award nomination. Since 1949, he has appeared in more than 100 films and has also made frequent television appearances. Tony Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz, in the Bronx, New York, in 1925, the son of Hungarian Jewish immigrant parents (from Mátészalka, Szatmár, Hungary) Emanuel and Helen Schwartz. His father was a tailor who had left his home country to find a new life in the United States. In the early days the family lived in the back of his father's shop, parents in one corner and Curtis and his brothers Julius and Robert in another. Curtis has said of his mother, "When I was a child Mom beat me up and was very aggressive and antagonistic." Mrs. Schwartz was later diagnosed with schizophrenia, a mental illness which also affected his brother Robert and led to his institutionalization. When Curtis was eight, he and his younger brother Julius were placed in an orphanage for a month because their parents could not afford to feed them. When Curtis was 13, his brother Julius was hit by a truck and died. It fell to Curtis to identify the body. Curtis retains his brother's cap and school books because, he says, "That's all that's left of him."[cite this quote] Between 1942 and 1945 Curtis served in the United States Navy aboard the submarine tender, the USS Proteus. He witnessed the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay September 14, 1945, from 300 yards (274.32 m) away.[1] After his military service, Curtis studied acting in New York alongside Elaine Stritch, Walter Matthau and Rod Steiger. He was "discovered" by talent agent and casting director Joyce Selznick because, as he says, "I was the handsomest of the boys." Arriving in Hollywood in 1948 at 23, he was placed under contract at Universal Pictures and changed his name to Tony Curtis. Although the studio taught him fencing and riding, Curtis admits he was only interested in girls and money. Curtis's screen debut came uncredited in the Criss Cross playing a rumba dancer. Later, he cemented his reputation with breakout performances such as in the role of the scheming press agent Sidney Falco in Sweet Smell of Success with Burt Lancaster(who was also in Criss Cross) and an Oscar-nominated performance as a bigoted escaped convict chained to Sidney Poitier in The Defiant Ones. He was so popular during the 1950's as a screen hunk that Elvis Presley copied his on-screen ducktail (DA) hairstyle.[2] Curtis also appeared frequently on television; he co-starred with Roger Moore in the TV series The Persuaders!. Later, he co-starred in McCoy and Vega$. In the early 1960s, he was immortalized as "Stony Curtis," a voice-over guest star on The Flintstones. Throughout his life Curtis has enjoyed painting, and since the early 1980s has pursued painting as a second career. His work commands more than £25000 a canvas now and he now focuses on painting rather than movies. "I still make movies but I'm not that interested in them any more. But I paint all the time." During 2007 his painting The Red Table was on display in the Metropolitan Museum in Manhattan. Curtis has spoken in the past of his disappointment at never being awarded an Oscar. "My profession has never recognized me sufficiently for my work."[cite this quote] But in March 2006, Curtis did receive the Sony Ericsson Empire Lifetime Achievement Award. He also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and received the Order of Arts and Letters from France in 1995. Tony Curtis has been married five times. His first (and most famous) wife was the actress Janet Leigh (1927–2004), to whom he was married for 11 years (June 4, 1951-1962), and with whom he fathered actresses Jamie Lee and Kelly Curtis.[3] "For a while, we were Hollywood's golden couple," he says. "I was very dedicated and devoted to Janet and on top of my trade, but in her eyes that goldenness started to wear off. I realized that whatever I was, I wasn't enough for Janet. That hurt me a lot and broke my heart."[cite this quote] It was Leigh's third marriage. Curtis, who admits to cheating on her throughout their marriage, left Leigh in 1962 for Christine Kaufmann, the 17-year-old German co-star of his latest film, Taras Bulba. Leigh was granted a quick divorce and later that year married stockbroker Robert Brandt in Las Vegas. |
MARTIN LANDAU Martin Landau, the Oscar-winning character actor, was born on June 20, 1931, in Brooklyn, New York. At the age of 17, he was hired by the New York Daily News as a staff cartoonist and illustrator. In his five years on the paper, he served as the illustrator for Billy Rose's "Pitching Horseshoes" column. He also worked for cartoonist Gus Edson on "The Gumps" comic strip. Landau's major ambition was to act and, in 1951, he made his stage debut in "Detective Story" at the Peaks Island Playhouse in Peaks Island, Maine. He made his off-Broadway debut that year in "First Love." Landau was one of 2000 applicants who auditioned for Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio in 1955 - only he and Steve McQueen were accepted. Landau was a friend of James Dean and McQueen, in a conversation with Landau, mentioned that he knew Dean and had met Landau. When Landau asked where they had met, McQueen informed him he had seen Landau riding into the New York City garage where he worked as a mechanic on the back of Dean's motorcycle. He acted during the mid-1950s in the television anthologies "Playhouse 90" (1956), "Studio One" (1948), "The Philco Television Playhouse" (1948), "Kraft Television Theatre" (1947), "Goodyear Television Playhouse" (1951) and "Omnibus" (1952). He began making a name for himself after replacing star Franchot Tone in the 1956 off-Broadway revival of Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya", a famous production that helped put off-Broadway on the New York theatrical map. In 1957, he made a well-received Broadway debut in the play "Middle of the Night". As part of the touring company with star Edward G. Robinson, he made it to the West Coast. He made his movie debut in Pork Chop Hill (1959) but scored on film as the heavy in Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller, North by Northwest (1959), in which he was shot on top of Mt. Rushmore while sadistically stepping on the fingers of Cary Grant, who was holding on for dear life to the cliff face. He also appeared in the blockbuster Cleopatra (1963), the most expensive film ever made up to that time, which nearly scuttled 20th Century-Fox and engendered one of the great public scandals, the Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton love affair that overshadowed the film itself. In 1963, Landau played memorable roles on two episodes of the science-fiction anthology series "The Outer Limits" (1963), "The Bellero Shield" and "The Man Who Was Never Born". He was Gene Roddenberry's first choice to play Mr. Spock on "Star Trek" (1966), but the role went to Leonard Nimoy, who later replaced Landau on "Mission: Impossible" (1966), the show that really made Landau famous. He originally was not meant to be a regular on the series, which co-starred his wife Barbara Bain, whom he had married in 1957. His character, Rollin Hand, was supposed to make occasional, though recurring appearances, on "Mission: Impossible" (1966), but when the producers had problems with star Steven Hill, Landau was used to take up the slack. Landau's characterisation was so well-received and so popular with the audience that he was made a regular. Landau received Emmy nominations as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for each of the three seasons he appeared. In 1968, he won the Golden Globe award as Best Male TV Star. Eventually, he quit the series in 1969 after a salary dispute when the new star, Peter Graves, was given a contract that paid him more than Landau, whose own contract stated he would have parity with any other actor on the show who made more than he did. The producers refused to budge and he and Bain, who had become the first actress in the history of television to be awarded three consecutive Emmy Awards (1967-69) while on the show, left the series, ostensibly to pursue careers in the movies. The move actually held back their careers, and "Mission: Impossible" (1966) went on for another four years with other actors. Landau appeared in support of Sidney Poitier in They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! (1970), the less successful sequel to the Oscar-winning In the Heat of the Night (1967), but it did not generate more work of a similar caliber. He starred in the TV-movie Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol (1972) (TV) on CBS, playing a prisoner of war returning to the US from Vietnam. The following year he shot a pilot for NBC for a proposed show, "Savage". Though it was directed by emerging wunderkind Steven Spielberg, NBC did not pick up the show. Needing work, Landau and Bain moved to England to play the leading roles in the syndicated science-fiction series "Space: 1999" (1975). Landau's and Bain's careers stalled after "Space: 1999" (1975) went out of production, and they were reduced to taking parts in the TV movie The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island (1981) (TV). It was the nadir of both their careers, and Bain's acting days, and their marriage, soon were over. Landau, one of the most talented character actors in Hollywood, and one not without recognition, had bottomed out career-wise. In 1983, he was stuck in low-budget sci-fi and horror movies like The Being (1983), a role far beneath his talent. His career renaissance got off to a slow start with a recurring role in the NBC sitcom "Buffalo Bill" (1983), starring Dabney Coleman. On Broadway, he took over the title role in the revival of "Dracula" and went on the road with the national touring company. Finally, his career renaissance began to gather momentum when Francis Ford Coppola cast him in a critical supporting role in his Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), for which Landau was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor. He won his second Golden Globe for the role. The next year, he received his second consecutive Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his superb turn as the adulterous husband in Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). He followed this up by playing famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal in the TNT TV-movie Max and Helen (1990) (TV). The summit of his post-"Mission: Impossible" carer was about to be scaled, however. He portrayed Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton's biopic Ed Wood (1994) and won glowing reviews. For his performance, he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Martin Landau, the superb character actor, finally had been recognized with his profession's ultimate award. His performance, which also won him his third Golden Globe, garnered numerous awards in addition to the Oscar and Golden Globe, including top honors from the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics. Landau continued to play a wide variety of roles in motion pictures and on television, turning in a superb performance in a supporting role in The Majestic (2001). He received his fourth Emmy nomination in 2004 as Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for "Without a Trace" (2002). |
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