Tony Curtis Will Talk: Marilyn Monroe + Janet Leigh + Christine Kaufmann

Tony Curtis will talk: Remembering Some Like It Hot co-star Marilyn Monroe, in addition to spouse and co-star Janet Leigh, and spouse and co-star Christine Kaufmann.

Tony Curtis will talk: Remembering Marilyn Monroe & former wives Janet Leigh + Christine Kaufmann

For obvious reasons, we avoid quoting from trash tabloids such as the Daily Mail. I’m making an exception here because that London rag features a write-up of a bizarre interview with 82-year-old Tony Curtis, whose co-stars include Marilyn Monroe, Natalie Wood, and Burt Lancaster, and among whose film credits are The Defiant Ones, Some Like It Hot, and The Boston Strangler. Since Curtis is directly quoted a number of times in the Daily Mail piece, I’m assuming he actually said those things – about his mother, and ex-wives Janet Leigh and Christine Kaufmann – unless he sues. Below are a few Tony Curtis quotes found in the article.

Tony Curtis quotes

“I was permanently aroused. Because of my mother, I didn’t see women as people with intellects. All I wanted was big breasts and sex. I was trying to prove something. Then again, I was so good-looking.”

“[Janet Leigh] took all 14 pills out [of a bottle] and started popping them in her mouth. I hit her really hard on the back so they all flew out of her. Then I knew the marriage was over.” Tony Curtis also claims that Janet Leigh, best remembered for getting herself stabbed to death while taking a shower in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, tried to turn him “into her idea of a gentleman. She found me crude and clumsy, and then she went mad”

“[Christine Kaufmann] was anti-Semitic. I worry about that. I think that because of the Iraq war, anti-Semitism is on the increase again. But I don’t get involved in politics.” (Update: Check out Christine Kaufmann’s remarks regarding Tony Curtis in the comments section below.)

Tony Curtis on Marilyn Monroe

And finally, regarding his remark that kissing Marilyn Monroe in Billy Wilder’s 1959 comedy Some Like It Hot “was like kissing Hitler.”

“I said it as a joke. I mean, it was such a darn stupid question, so I gave a stupid answer.”

Tony Curtis movies

Besides Some Like It Hot, which also starred Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis’ movies include George Marshall’s Houdini (1953), in the title role, opposite Janet Leigh; Carol Reed’s Trapeze (1956), with Burt Lancaster, Gina Lollobrigida, and Katy Jurado; and Alexander Mackendrick’s Sweet Smell of Success (1957), with Burt Lancaster.

Also: Stanley Kramer’s The Defiant Ones (1958), for which both Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier received Best Actor Oscar nominations; Blake Edward’s blockbuster comedy Operation Petticoat (1959), with Cary Grant; and Richard Fleischer’s The Boston Strangler (1968), with Curtis in the title role, and co-starring Henry Fonda.

Source: Daily Mail. There’s no date in the article, but the interview likely took place in early 2008.