# RIP Tony Curtis
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [September 30, 2010, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585 "2010-09-30T10:32:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585/1 "2010-09-30T10:32:30Z")
[Tony Curtis has died](http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/30/earlyshow/main6914033.shtml) at 85. What can I say . . . he was one of the great ones, and will be sorely missed.
---
### Author:  [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585/2 "2010-09-30T10:36:16Z")
Perhaps I need to check out that whose dead website more often because I thought he was already dead.
---
### Author:  [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585/3 "2010-09-30T11:41:59Z")
He was great in _Some Like It Hot_.
Plus of course there are some lesser films – “Yonder lies the castle of my father” and all that.
---
### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585/4 "2010-09-30T11:52:26Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Plus of course there are some lesser films – “Yonder lies the castle of my father” and all that.
You’re being ironic, of course, but I have to mention that I loved him in **Spartacus** and **The Sweet Smell of Success** and a few dozen other pictures.
And we’ve been over “Yonder Lies the Castle of my Faddah” often enough on this Board. In short, he said something sorta kinda similar, but not in the movie(s) most people attribute it to, and not as badly as that. That line is a dig at his accent, and I kinda sorta like the way they actually used that to dramatic purpose in _Spartacus_.
---
### Author:  [@Caprese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caprese)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585/5 "2010-09-30T11:56:15Z")
When I was a teen, he scared me to death in [The Boston Strangler.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062755/)
---
### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585/6 "2010-09-30T12:01:37Z")
> [@Biggirl](#):
>
> Perhaps I need to check out that whose dead website more often because I thought he was already dead.
That would be the [Dead People Server.](http://www.dpsinfo.com/dps/index.html) It’s not dead yet, Jim.
---
### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585/7 "2010-09-30T12:30:15Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Perhaps I need to check out that whose dead website more often because I thought he was already dead.
Oh, no. I’ve seen him on TV only a couple of years ago. And not that long ago he was here in Boston performing in the musical version of **Some Like it Hot** \* – as the older millionaire, not the guy in the band.
\*which I suspect is just **Sugar** retitled, but I didn’t see it.
---
### Author:  [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585/8 "2010-09-30T12:32:45Z")
I am not a Tony Curtis fan. I have never bought a ticket, or rented a video, because he was in it.
And yet, whenever I have watched one of his movies, I have enjoyed it.
---
### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585/9 "2010-09-30T12:36:38Z")
> [@](#):
>
> And not that long ago he was here in Boston performing in the musical version of Some Like it Hot\* – as the older millionaire, not the guy in the band.
2003, according to a quick internet search. Longer than I thought, but still not long enough ago to make me think “isn’t he dead already?”
---
### Author:  [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585/10 "2010-09-30T12:41:34Z")
Another link to a golden era is gone and we are less because of it.
As a kid I loved [Operation Petticoat](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsDdl3D11Fk)
---
### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585/11 "2010-09-30T12:54:39Z")
My favorite movie in which he was the star was probably _The Defiant Ones_.
Trivia: he was the biological father of the twins who played Adam on _Bewitched_. They were the result of a fling with a starlet, were placed for adoption at birth, and learned this later when they tracked their birth mother, by which time they looked just like him. [Cite with pics](http://www.bewitched.net/adam.htm). I don’t believe they ever had a relationship with Tony, but on an E! show on _Bewitched_ one said he does have a relationship with Jaime Lee.
---
### Author:  [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585/12 "2010-09-30T13:24:37Z")
I always enjoyed Tony Curtis-he gave great performances in “Taras Bulba”, “Houdini”, and “The Great Imposter” (the last was his best, IMHO).
There aren’t too many guys like TC-he had a very wide range of roles, and a long career.
RIP.
---
### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585/13 "2010-09-30T14:14:07Z")
> [@yojimbo](#):
>
> As a kid I loved [Operation Petticoat](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsDdl3D11Fk)
I still love _Operation Petticoat_.
---
### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585/14 "2010-09-30T14:18:35Z")
In my youth I loved _The Great Race_ and _Houdini._ I sometimes wish that there was a channel that played those old movies.
---
### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585/15 "2010-09-30T14:24:08Z")
stupid CAPs software!
TCM. 😉
.
---
### Author:  [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585/16 "2010-09-30T14:53:47Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#):
>
> > [@yojimbo](#):
> >
> > As a kid I loved [Operation Petticoat](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsDdl3D11Fk)
>
> I still love _Operation Petticoat_.
I didn’t mean to imply I don’t love it anymore. To be more accurate, I fell in love with it as a kid. I’d never switch pass it if I came across it on a Saturday afternoon. I’d smile and relax back in my chair and enjoy Curtis, Grant, pink sub and the rest all over again.
---
### Author:  [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585/17 "2010-09-30T15:07:29Z")
The last few times I’ve seen him on talk shows, when he was wearing that cowboy hat, he came across as a very ill man.
I read his autobiography, of course, and of course he fits right in with that breed of actor with problems with alcohol and drugs, divorces, affairs, and similar messy situations. One of those old “legends” dating and discarding and marrying and divorcing young girls (who think they’ve jumped on the gravy train). Like Eddie Fisher and Mickey Rooney. I love reading about the old days of moviemaking.
RIP, Tony. I’ve enjoyed so many of his movies, the good and the bad. “Yonder lies da castle…” one, where he’s wearing baby blue tights! And every time “Houdini” comes on, I drop everything to watch it. I’m sure TCM is going to pre-empt their schedule and show a lot of Tony Curtis movies in the days to come.
So if Hollywood deaths come in threes, we have Tony Curtis, Eddie Fisher, and…Arthur Penn just died.
---
### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585/18 "2010-09-30T15:52:15Z")
> [@salinqmind](#):
>
> The last few times I’ve seen him on talk shows, when he was wearing that cowboy hat, he came across as a very ill man.
I saw him on The Graham Norton Show on BBC America last year. He did look quite frail, but still had a sharp wit, and a rather randy sense of humor.
Godspeed, Tony.
---
### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585/19 "2010-09-30T15:55:24Z")
Damn. RIP, Tony.
I wonder if they’ll dress him in drag for the funeral.
---
### Author:  [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585/20 "2010-09-30T16:34:22Z")
He was always one of my favorites, especially in \*The Vikings \*and _The Great Race_.
I also loved him as “Stony Curtis” on _The Flintstones_. Ironic that he should die on the fiftieth anniversary of the Flintstones debut.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-tony-curtis/555585.md?page=2)