Tony Curtis Blondell net worth is $60 Million. Also know about Tony Curtis Blondell bio, salary, height, age weight, relationship and more …

Tony Curtis Blondell Wiki Biography

Bernard Schwartz was born on 3 June 1925, in The Bronx, New York City USA, of Hungarian-Jewish and Slovak ancestry. Tony was an actor, whose career spanned six decades. He’s been part of various films including “Houdini”, “Sweet Smell of Success”, and “The Boston Strangler”. All of his efforts helped put his net worth to where it was prior to his passing in 2010.

How rich was Tony Curtis? As of mid-2016, sources estimate a net worth that is at $60 million, mostly earned through a successful career as an actor. He also worked on radio, and all of these ensured his wealth before his passing.

Tony was born into a very problematic family – he didn’t learn English until he was five or six years old. His mother was also very aggressive, beating him up and being a negative influence in his life; she would be diagnosed with schizophrenia, so when he was eight years old he was placed in an orphanage, and then became involved with local gangs. He was helped by a neighbor who offered to send him to a Boy Scout camp, and that changed his life. He attended Seward Park High School and experienced his first acting opportunity there. Inspired by newsreels, he joined the US Navy after the attack on Pearl Harbor. and served aboard the submarine USS Proteus. After finishing his service, he attended the City College of New York and then studied acting at The New School. Eventually he was discovered, and he moved to Hollywood, changing his name from Bernard Schwartz to Tony Curtis.

He made his debut in the film “Criss Cross” though he was not credited for it. He then continued with an appearance in the film “City Across the River”, but would truly get recognition for his performance as the press agent Sidney Falco in the film “Sweet Smell of Success”. He also got his first Academy Award nomination for his performance in “The Defiant Ones” in 1958. After these films, Curtis became one of the most in-demand stars in Hollywood. He continued to do a lot of drama and comedy films including “Sex and the Single Girl”, “Spartacus”, and “The Last Tycoon”. He also made regular appearances on television including in “The Persuaders!” alongside Roger Moore and “Vega$”. Tony also did a voice over for “The Flinstones”. His net worth mounted steadily.

Aside from films and television, Curtis was well known for his paintings and some of them are now valued at around $25,000. Later in his career he focused more on painting than films and was inspired by the works of Picasso and Van Gogh. He received several honors later in his life including the Sony Ericsson Empire Lifetime Achievement Award and the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Curtis also released an autobiography entitled “American Prince: A Memoir” which includes stories of his time with legends such as James Dean and Frank Sinatra. He also wrote the book “The Making of Some Like it Hot: My Memories of Marilyn Monroe and the Classic American Movie”. He was featured in the documentary “The Jill & Tony Curtis Story” and also participated in philanthropic work with her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis.

For his personal life, Tony was married six times, first to actress Janet Leigh from 1951 to 1962; they had two daughters, one of whom was Jamie Lee. The following year he married Christine Kaufmann, who was 17 years old at the time. They also had two daughters but divorced in 1968. His next marriage was to Leslie Allen(1968-82) who he had two sons with. His other marriages were to Andrea Savio(1984-92), Lisa Deutsch(1993-94), and Jill Vanderberg. Jill was 42 years younger than Tony and she remained with him until his death. He died on September 2010 as a result of cardiac arrest. He had suffered from lung problems later in his life due to smoking, though he had quit thirty years earlier.

IMDB Wikipedia $60 Million 1.75 m 1925 1925-06-03 2010 2010-09-29 5′ 11″ (1.8 m) Actor Alexandra Curtis Allegra Curtis American Andrea Savio m 1978-1992 Ben Curtis Tony Curtis Christine Kaufmann Christine Kaufmann m 1963-1968 City College of New York Deddon (2009) Emanuel Schwartz Frank Sinatra Glutton (2010) Helen Schwartz Henderson James Dean Jamie Lee Curtis Janet Leigh m 1951-1962 Jill Vandenberg Curtis (m. 1998–2010) Julius Schwartz June 3 Kelly Curtis Leslie Curtis m 1968-1982 Lisa Deutsch m 1993-1994 Manhattan Marilyn Monroe Nevada New York New York City Nicholas Curtis Robert Schwartz Roger Moore September 29 Seward Park Campus Sidney Falco Slashers (2001) Space Fury (1999) Stunts The Bronx The New School Tony Curtis Blondell Tony Curtis Net Worth U.S. United States Van Gogh

Tony Curtis Blondell Quick Info

Tony Curtis Blondell Trademarks

1. Crooning voice.
2. Thick, black hair, with curly forelock
3. Pretty-boy looks
4. Distinctive Bronx accent

Tony Curtis Blondell Quotes

• (On Don’t Make Waves (1967) The plot was utterly ridiculous, but I agreed to appear in the film because I got a percentage of the gross.
• [on his love scene with Marilyn Monroe on the yacht in Some Like It Hot (1959)] It was like kissing Hitler. She’d gone funny, her mind was all over the place. It was awful. She nearly choked me to death by deliberately sticking her tongue down my throat into my windpipe.
• [on working with Laurence Olivier on Spartacus (1960)] Olivier taught me a lot about acting. He said to me, “Tony, clothes maketh the man.” He taught me that you choose your clothes and you put them on and you finally become that character. He didn’t just put on any costume that was given to him. He chose what was best for the character he was playing and he showed me how that helps to take the character into another dimension. I learned that from him and always used it. So he gave me tips on acting and I gave him tips on body-building. I took him behind the set and said, “On your face.” Then I showed him how to do press-ups properly and it helped to get him into good shape.
• God is great, he won’t hurt us, ’cause he looks like Tony Curtis.
• I got a lot of girls while I was at the peak. If I didn’t get them, I got their stand-ins.
• Painting is more meaningful to me than any performance I’ve ever given.
• I have met every President of the United States from Kennedy on, except Nixon.
• I enjoy being Tony. I was the only one who ever knocked Burt Lancaster on his *ss in Trapeze (1956), and I took Kirk Douglas’ eye out in The Vikings (1958), and I took two girls away from Jack Lemmon. I also took away Cary Grant’s submarine, so I’ve got these nice moments in my movies.
• [on Some Like It Hot (1959)] It’s one of the most outstanding movies I’ve made. It was a very complicated role. I played a straight man, I played a comic, I played a woman, I played a saxophone player, I played a millionaire, I played a little bit of Cary Grant as well. When the picture was over, Billy Wilder ran the picture for Cary, and said, ‘Well, how did you like Tony’s impression?’ and Cary said (doing Cary Grant imitation) ‘I don’t talk like that!’
• Here in America, you have to die before they say something nice about you.
• Don’t listen to them, when they say don’t drink, or drink very little, don’t smoke, don’t eat too much, don’t eat badly, don’t get fat, don’t get ugly, and p*ssed off that life is passing you by. There’s no such animal, my friend.
• [His advice to George Michael after his 1998 arrest for lewd conduct] Keep smiling.
• I was resented and hated because I was so good-looking and Jewish. It’s true. This is not paranoia. I think that because of the Iraq war, anti-Semitism is on the increase again.
• They are all dead now; Cary Grant, Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, all my Hollywood friends. Sometimes I feel so lonely. Actors today achieve nothing nor do they have any glamour. They seem more interested in adopting babies than films. All the films are terrible, too, because the scripts are so bad and there are no decent film-makers.
• [on his love for the ladies] Listen, we all do. I tell ya, there isn’t a guy a met that wouldn’t love to jump on a beautiful woman without knowing her name. And if that’s what you call womanizing, then call me the King.
• When I made Sweet Smell of ­Success, The Defiant Ones, I should have continued in that milieu. It was my own stupidity that I didn’t. I just went on blithely from one picture to the next, ­letting other people guide my ­destiny, instead of taking hold of it myself. But that’s not bad either because I find now that there’s no period in my life that I regret. Each had a reason and a purpose. The thing is to learn to accept it and not spend your present and your future looking back and thinking, ‘Oh shit, I wish I hadn’t done that.’
• [on Marlon Brando] He was an interesting man, different, a genius in the way he thought.
• One of the big reasons I started using cocaine was that I was told it was great for sex. It didn’t make me superhuman in the longevity department, but it certainly did make my sexual experiences more intense.
• [on today’s actors, starting with Brad Pitt] That Pitt fellow – what’s his name? He hasn’t got it. Now, Robert Downey Jr. – I think he might have something.
• [on Cary Grant] The greatest movie actor of all time.
• [on Marilyn Monroe] You could tell she’d already been battered by life, and I found that she’d been in an orphanage, as I had, and that her mother was also schizophrenic. I loved her. And she loved me, but we both wanted to be in the movies, and that meant everything.
• I just wanted to be treated like anybody else. There was a lot of opposition to me during the early years of movies. It had an effect on me. I don’t feel like I got the movies I should’ve gotten. I felt I deserved more than that the industry had given me. I felt I should have been considered more, with a little more respect from the Screen Actors Guild and the Academy. I don’t feel like I contributed what I wanted to contribute in the movies.
• [on the long-running feud with daughter Jamie Lee Curtis] What am I going to do? God bless her, I wish her the best. If she can’t forgive me, then get another father.
• [on his 1951 marriage to first wife Janet Leigh] I even married Janet for my career. I could see the two of us could get more attention together. We had the paparazzi wherever we went, we were on the cover of all the movie magazines. It wasn’t enough for a man to be cute, he had to be connected to the right woman…What better way to get famous?
• [on his relationship with his mother] I got nothing from her. I got slapped around is what I got.
• [on dying] I may have them take my ashes and spread them all over Las Vegas!
• [on his troubled relationship with daughter Jamie Lee Curtis] I have a feeling she wanted to teach me a lesson for abandoning her mother and her. But I couldn’t be with Janet Leigh anymore. She was disappearing into her own madnesses.
• [on Brokeback Mountain (2005)] This picture is not as important as we make it. It’s nothing unique. The only thing unique about it is they put it on the screen. And they make ’em gay cowboys. ‘Howard Hughes (I)’ and John Wayne wouldn’t like it.
• [in 2008] I’m just wondering how many more years I have. I don’t have 20. I don’t have 15. How many years do I have? I don’t know, but I plan to reinvent myself as an 84-year-old, as an 85-year-old man who can do anything and everything.
• I realized if I could [have sex with] a girl . . . a woman has accepted me. The main force in me was to be accepted by others. Not education, not money in my pocket, nothing except to be accepted by a girl.
• On living in the present: So far so good, and I’m ready for more. My art will give me more. There’ll be more shows, and this book will open things up for me again. There’s still so much to discover. So I have to take good care of myself so you don’t find me in the gutter.
• [on what he misses] I miss a pale-green Buick convertible with Dynaflow drive. I miss a little beach house in Malibu with the waves lapping on the beach. [This was during his first months in Hollywood, when he would bring then-unknown Marilyn Monroe back to his beach house]
• [on finally forgiving his mother long after she died] We could have all turned out like her. She cleaned houses in Hungary from when she was six or seven. She had no opportunities.
• [about his sixth wife Jillie] She’s the only one who didn’t want me to change after I married her.
• It’s rather nice not to be waiting for a script to come through the door, and even if it did, I would turn it down.
• [about Some Like It Hot (1959)] It was perfect. Great dialogue. Crisp acting. Billy Wilder was brilliant, and Jack Lemmon and I always had a great time together; even though we were from different backgrounds – he was Harvard-educated, very intelligent and urbane. We balanced each other out.
• A lot of things that would have meant a lot to me were denied me by Hollywood. I didn’t speak properly. I spoke with a thick New York accent. Everyone knew my name was Schwartz – and Jews were not welcome. [I suffered resentment from the Hollywood establishment for marrying a “shiksa goddess” in Janet Leigh.] “Debbie Reynolds was the centre of gravity for a glitzy Caucasian crowd, and I could tell they didn’t appreciate me. They didn’t pick on you, they just ignored you. I couldn’t understand it.
• I became great friends with all my co-stars. With Gregory Peck, Burt Lancaster, Jack Lemmon and Cary Grant . . . Cary Grant . . . Cary Grant. He could have picked anyone, but he allowed me the privilege to be in the movie with him. Jesus. To be in a movie with Cary Grant. Meeting him was the best thing that ever happened to me. He was the reason why I wanted to get into the movies – and that is all I ever wanted.
• I was the best-looking kid in town. It’s not what you have but what you do with it that counts.
• [on his ambitions] I even married Janet Leigh for my career. I could see the two of us could get more attention together. We had the paparazzi wherever we went, we were on the cover of all the movie magazines. It wasn’t enough for a man to be cute, he had to be connected to the right woman.
• [about first meeting Marilyn Monroe] She was 19 and didn’t look anything like what she became. She had reddish-brown hair and her figure was not distinguished yet. Her bosoms weren’t what they were later and her legs were a little scrawny, but she was putting it all together. Don’t you see? Once she accepted she was a woman, then, look out, world. There was no guy that was safe. If she liked you, there was no man who could resist.
• [about the starlet system of 1950s Hollywood] These girls of 18 or 20 were fodder. All the guys at the studios, including myself, would feast on them, taking their sweetness. There were a lot of them. I don’t remember their names. Then they would go home and get married. Poor darlings. They came and went.
• [about his schizophrenic mother’s influence on his childhood] Yes, yes, that had a lot to do with it. I got nothing from her. I got slapped around is what I got. But I liked to be with women. I never did it with dogs or elephants or men. Only with women.
• [about his many sexual dalliances] It was love. I was falling in love every day. I am completely in love with women. Every woman. I loved their company and there was always a chance you could kiss them. I found kissing a very appealing experience. I was just always hoping for that conquest, hoping for that physical affection . . . that ejaculation.
• Early on, I decided I didn’t want to be known as a mere actor. I wanted to feel like a star. I wanted to get my footprints in Hollywood on the sidewalk, which I got. I wanted to be on the cover of all the magazines and go to parties in a limousine with a beautiful girl. I did all of that – and more. And I appreciate it. Every day I’m reminded of who I am. People stop me in the street all the time. Women love to see me – and I love to see them. I have an affinity for women, you know.
• Look. I’m so privileged to be alive in this studio that happens to be mine. I’m 83 years old and I’m still a factor in this world, I still contribute wherever I go. It’s astounding. I could have been a politician or a brain surgeon. But I didn’t have an education, so there wasn’t anything I could do but get into the movies. And, boy, did I ever. To burst into the movies like I did. Isn’t that neat?
• Well, on the one hand you could say I was tremendously blessed, on the other I was definitely cursed.
• [about Spartacus (1960)] Kirk Douglas is tough, but Stanley Kubrick was tougher!
• [on Marilyn Monroe on the set of Some Like It Hot (1959)] I knew there was something disturbing her. For some inexplicable reason, she was going down the wrong path and no one knew it.
• [on Marilyn Monroe] I’m in love with her now. I’ve loved her all these years.
• My father was a tailor. I used to deliver for him. I’d have to hold the clothes up high to keep them from dragging on the ground.
• I was 22 when I arrived in Hollywood in 1948. I had more action than Mount Vesuvius – men, women, animals! I loved it too. I participated where I wanted to and didn’t where I didn’t. I’ve always been open about it.
• Fame is another profession. I feel that I have two professions, I have the profession of being an actor and I have the profession of being famous.
• Comedy is the most honest way for an actor to earn his living. People would rather laugh than cry. The quickest way to change drama into comedy is simply to speed up the film.
• Hollywood… the most sensational merry-go-around ever built.
• I had to be careful where I went because I was a Jew, because I was young and because I was handsome. It made me wiry and erratic and paranoid, which is what I still am. Always on guard.
• I wouldn’t be seen dead with a woman old enough to be my wife.
• [asked who the most attractive person he ever worked with was] I am.
• What’s the secret to a long and happy life? Young women’s saliva!
• I ran around with a lump in my pants, chased all the girls. This is what I reflected on the screen. There wasn’t anything deeper or less deep than that.
• They gave me away as a prize once – a Win Tony Curtis For A Weekend competition. The woman who won was disappointed. She’d hoped for second prize – a new stove.

Tony Curtis Blondell Important Facts

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• In his 2008 autobiography “American Prince: A Memoir” Curtis accused many people he worked with of holding anti-Semitic views.
• Although he played Ernest Borgnine’s son in The Vikings (1958), he was only eight years his junior in real life.
• Met Julie Adams and Piper Laurie, when the three were all under contract with Universal in 1949.
• Lifelong friends of: Julie Adams and Piper Laurie.
• George Stevens’ “Gunga Din” is his favorite film.
• Release of his book, “American Prince: A Memoir” by Tony with Peter Golenbock. [October 2008]
• Co-starring as Osgood Fielding III in musical stage version of Some Like It Hot (1959). [June 2002]
• Release of his book, “Tony Curtis: The Autobiography” by Tony and Barry Paris. [1993]
• Was a liberal Democrat and attended several of the Democratic National Conventions until his death. He was even a frequent White House guest during the Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy Administrations.
• Serving with F Troop (1965) actor Larry Storch in the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1945 aboard a submarine tender, he witnessed the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay from a vantage point 300 yards away. He and Storch have had a lifelong friendship. They appeared together in The Great Race (1965). Storch also co-starred as his room mate/asst’ in the comedy ‘Forty Pounds of Trouble’ (1962).
• From the top of his submarine in Tokyo Bay, using a pair of binoculars, he was able to witness the Japanese surrender on the deck of the USS Missouri, about a mile away. He considered this experience to be one of the highlights of his life.
• Father of two sons, with Leslie Curtis: Nicholas Curtis (desceased) and Benjamin Curtis.
• He disinherited all of his children from his will and left the bulk of his estate to his wife Jill Vandenberg Curtis.
• Following his death, he was buried with some of his favorite possessions – a Stetson hat, an Armani scarf, driving gloves, an iPhone and a copy of his favorite novel, “Anthony Adverse,” a book that inspired his celebrity name.
• Suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in his last years.
• According to his autobiography, he really desired the lead male role of Paul Varjack in the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961). Director Blake Edwards considered the idea, but the role eventually went to George Peppard.
• Admits that he is largely estranged from all six of his children, including actress Jamie Lee Curtis, one of his children by first wife Janet Leigh.
• Like many before and after, he changed his name from Bernard Schwartz to Tony Curtis, partly in response to Hollywood anti-Semitism.
• Broke a Hollywood taboo in the 1950s by insisting that an African-American actor, Sidney Poitier, have co-starring billing next to him in the movie The Defiant Ones (1958).
• Claims he probably had a sexual addiction. Among his female conquests boasted of in his 2008 memoir was a pre-star Marilyn Monroe who was a very young, pony-tailed redhead during their teenage affair.
• His sixth wife, Jill Vandenberg Curtis (since 1998), who is 46 years younger than he, runs a wild-horse refuge.
• Recovered from a cocaine addiction in the 1980s.
• Claims that his mother was physically abusive and that his father was impassive.
• Now in his 80s, he spends most of his time painting. Some of his works are a part of a permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
• He enjoys playing the flute for pleasure and relaxation. He is a very accomplished player.
• His brother Julius died after being hit by a truck (1938).
• Elvis Presley copied his duck-tail hairstyle after seeing it on screen.
• His favorite movie star was Cary Grant.
• Has appeared in tourism advertisements for his ancestral homeland Hungary.
• Was originally considered for one of the leading roles of Lady L (1965).
• Nearly died in hospital from pneumonia at Christmas 2006.
• Along with Ernest Borgnine, Curtis refused to watch, and publicly condemned, Brokeback Mountain (2005).
• Serving with F Troop (1965) actor Larry Storch in the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1945 aboard a submarine tender, he witnessed the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay from a vantage point 300 yards away. He and Storch have had a lifelong friendship. They appeared together in The Great Race (1965). Storch also co-starred as his room mate/asst’ in the comedy 40 Pounds of Trouble (1962).
• He was a militant anti-smoker, having been a heavy smoker himself for about thirty years. Both Sir Michael Caine and Sir Roger Moore credited Curtis with helping them quit smoking cigarettes in the early 1970s, though not cigars.
• Appeared in Sugar, a stage musical based on Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot (1959) . He appeared as millionaire Osgood Fielding III, the character played by Joe E. Brown in the film.
• Since re-dubbing the bath scene in Spartacus (1960) in which he starred with Laurence Olivier, Curtis has said that whenever he encounters Anthony Hopkins (who did the voiceover for Olivier in the re-dubbed version following Olivier’s death), he hollers “Oh Tony… it’s Antoninus”.
• Was the inspiration for and voiced the character Stoney Curtis on an episode of The Flintstones (1960), along with Ann-Margret as Ann Marg-rock.
• He has two adopted sons.
• He made a literary cameo in Matt Whyman’s debut romantic comedy novel, ‘Man or Mouse’, in which the main character, Ren, e-mails Curtis with his love-life problems, and finally meets him briefly.
• Suffers from fear of flying.
• Appears on the cover of The Beatles’ “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”.
• Lives in Henderson, Nevada.
• Enjoys painting and creating shadow boxes. In late 2005, the Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY) acquired one of his canvasses for its permanent collection.
• Born to Emanuel Schwartz, a Hungarian tailor who emigrated to the United States, and his wife Helen, he grew up with two brothers, Julius and Robert.
• His son, Nicholas Curtis, died of seizures due to an overdose of heroin (2 July 1994).
• Father of Allegra Curtis and Alexandra Curtis (with Christine Kaufmann).
• Father of Jamie Lee Curtis and Kelly Curtis (with Janet Leigh).

Tony Curtis Blondell Filmography

Tony Curtis Blondell Awards