Tony Curtis
Oct. 1st, 2010 02:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloI don't find cross-dressing intrinsically funny and Marilyn irritates me, so my favourite Tony Curtis film isn't Some Like It Hot, but everyone else's number two, The Sweet Smell of Success. The combination of the actor's charm and the character's lack of it makes for some interesting chemistry.
Curtis made a lot of movies. The ones that remain truly memorable can be counted on the fingers of one hand. In some of those- Spartacus for instance- he struggled against miscasting. He wasn't one of the greatest stars. The great stars last. His cocky machismo is of its time and soon went out of fashion.
I gather he was a nice guy. He knew he was lucky. He rode his luck. When the film roles started to dry up he reinvented himself as a painter. He went through addiction, came out the other side, and had too much character ever to go "poor me". Pick any of his later interviews and they're remarkable for two things, firstly self-knowledge, secondly, gratitude for all the chances he'd had. He could act shallow better than anybody going, but in real life he wasn't.
Curtis made a lot of movies. The ones that remain truly memorable can be counted on the fingers of one hand. In some of those- Spartacus for instance- he struggled against miscasting. He wasn't one of the greatest stars. The great stars last. His cocky machismo is of its time and soon went out of fashion.
I gather he was a nice guy. He knew he was lucky. He rode his luck. When the film roles started to dry up he reinvented himself as a painter. He went through addiction, came out the other side, and had too much character ever to go "poor me". Pick any of his later interviews and they're remarkable for two things, firstly self-knowledge, secondly, gratitude for all the chances he'd had. He could act shallow better than anybody going, but in real life he wasn't.
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-01 07:18 pm (UTC)A lot of British actors of that generation went in for hell raising in a big way. I think it had something to do with their being ashamed of having just missed out on WWII. Richard Burton- who was the chief of them- openly despised his profession.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-03 10:04 am (UTC)Agree - there does seem to have been a strong compulsion to prove their manly manliness amongst the generation you mean. I'm thinking Peter Finch and Stanley Baker, too.