‘It’s a profession that rotates in your brain’

Uncensored talk from Hollywood legend Tony Curtis

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The diction of a thug, the soul of a poet and a completelack of inhibition were three of the most charming things about actor TonyCurtis, who died Thursday. Back in 2002, Curtis came to East Lansing to performin a musical version of his classic film, “Some Like it Hot.” The extrovert’sextrovert, Curtis said way more in a phone interview than we could fit into the story at the time,but now, with his passing Thursday at 85, it seems like a good time to uncork someheady Hollywood hooch.

On positive notices for the stage version of “Some Like itHot”:

It's a little bit of a pleasure to be getting, heh heh heh,accolations now. It is hard work,but it's a profession unto itself. It's unique and different. It's a professionthat only rotates in your brain. It's your attitude, and your intensity, thatmakes it. It's not acting as much as it is being.

On his looks:

A woman wrote in the paper the other day, "Tony Curtis —Head-Turning Handsome." It's like an Indian name. I like that.

On starting out in Hollywood:

I didn’t let anything stand in my way, man. I knew I wantedto be an actor. I knew I had no training whatsoever, and I was gonna learn inthe movies. Jack Lemmon, my dear friend, always was amazed by me. He was in NewYork, worked television for a couple of years, got an idea what that work islike. [imitates Lemmon] ‘But you, you just showed up in the studio.’

On competing with “serious” actors in major movies:

These guys were not from New York City, and I had to fightthat New York stamp of gangsterism — that New York accent that was almostYiddish and almost English. All these other guys spoke like Hamlet. I broughtto my parts a certain imperfect background. I sensed it when I first got intomovies.

On taking unorthodox roles, like the prisoner chained toSidney Poitier in the 1957 drama “The Defiant Ones”:

That is the purpose of the exercise. To not forget, andallow yourself to just smoothly walk through it all. We all have a little edgeto ourselves. In a comedy, in a drama, in a sci-fi movie, in a werewolf movie,everybody should have a little edge. There should be a little something thatmakes everybody nervous, either by your looks, your attitude.

On playing the on-the-make hustler in "Sweet Smell ofSuccess":

A lot of guys would see that movie and say, 'I know whathe's going through. I don't want to hang around here and break my ass doingthis, I want to go and do bigger and better things in my life.’ That's thedrive that drives us all. That's why we like actors so much -- because theyplay the parts we would like to be.

On playing with Laurence Olivier and Kirk Douglas in "Spartacus":

Now, I don't know how the fuck that happened — excuse mylanguage. All of the sudden I'm in these excellent scenes, playing thesescenes, and nobody's stopping me. Hah!

On the bath scene with Olivier in "Spartacus":

It was alluding to two men making love, alluding tohomosexuality, which everybody seemed to be shy of, and run away from, youknow? And now, it's not so anymore. But what's to run away from? What is thisbig bullshit we make out of these — these madnesses? There's nothing wrong,it's the human condition. It's been going on ever since the since the firsttime men looked at each other. Why turn it into such a peculiar kind ofalienation? We live in an ignorant world where you hate someone because hewears a yarmulke, or you hate somebody because they eat potatoes, or you hatesomebody because of their color, or hate somebody because she's got big knockersand you don't. The combinations are amazing, just amazing.

On doing the musical “Some Like it Hot”:

I'm 77, I skip around in the show, I sing and dance, I rollon my belly like a reptile. And I think it's infectious. A lot of guys come upto me, they look twenty years older than me, and they say 'Gee whiz, when Igrow up, I want to be you.' I said, 'Well, you better start doing it now.' Oh,it's too funny.

On why the 1959 film "Some Like it Hot" holds up:

There's nothing to hold up. It's so human, and so amusing atany time in our lives. Some of those early Chaplin films were so human, youcan't date them. You can't say that people were different then. That's not so.

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