American Prince (13 page)

“Give him a part,” she would plead. “Let him play you as a boy.”

I tried to let her down as gently as I could, but my mother was not an easy person to dissuade, especially when one of her precious children was involved.

L
ater in 1949
I made a movie called
Francis,
which was the name of the now-famous talking mule. Donald O’Connor, a child star who would go on to become Gene Kelly’s sidekick in
Singin’ in the Rain,
played a schlubby soldier who talked with Francis. This was Donald’s first major role since he’d returned home from the war, and it probably ruined his career, because the studio went on to make a Francis the Talking Mule picture every year for the next five years, and Donald got typecast.

I played a lieutenant who was Donald’s friend. In real life Donald was a hilarious guy, and we got along great. He used to love to use his film projector to secretly project porno films onto his next-door neighbor’s garage door. A car would drive by at night, and you’d hear the tires squeal as the driver slammed on the brakes. Then Donald would shut the film off.

On the set, Donald and I would fool around between shots to entertain the cast and crew. Donald would talk in the voice of Francis the mule, and I would play Donald.

“How are you doing?” I’d say.

“Fine. How are you?” he’d say.

“I’m great,” I’d say. “What are you doing?”

“Making a movie.”

“Who’s the star of the movie?”

“That fucking idiot Donald O’Connor,” he’d say. The cast and crew would scream with laughter.

Most of the actors in the
Francis
cast were young, and we were always pulling practical jokes on each other. In one prank, someone would come up behind me with a stick and tap my shoe from behind. Then a crew member would come over to me and say, “Are you getting electric shocks in your foot? These soundstages are so old that the electricity jumps around like crazy.” And just as he was saying it, another guy would tap my shoe from behind.

“Hey, there it went, I felt it,” I said.

“Yeah,” the crew member said, “it happens to all of us. Just be careful.”

The one old-timer in the cast of
Francis
was Zasu Pitts, who had starred in the movie
Greed
in 1924. In that movie she had been slinky and beautiful; I remember one scene where she had sat in bed wearing very little, throwing gold coins around. While she was making
Francis
I went over and talked to her a little before she went on the set. I didn’t tell her how much I loved her when I was a kid. Age was a sensitive subject in Hollywood, given the premium the industry placed on youth and beauty.

In my next movie,
I Was a Shoplifter,
Universal decided to showcase two of their young up-and-comers: Rock Hudson and me. Rock’s real name was Roy Scherer. After spending several years in the Navy during World War II, Rock was discovered by agent Henry Wilson, who combined the Rock of Gibraltar and the Hudson River to create his screen name. Rock and I were the same age, but he looked ten years older than I did. He was a tall, handsome man who played against women in their mid-thirties, while I would play a younger role, like their son. As a result, Rock and I never competed against each other for parts, which was a good thing for me.

In
I Was a Shoplifter,
I played a fence who bought stolen goods from the girl who did the shoplifting, and Rock played the detective trying to catch her. This was not a movie that could be dignified by the designation Grade B; it was a Grade Z movie. Already I was beginning to see what people meant when they said Universal was a nickel-and-dime outfit. I could see why Universal actors got the itch to make pictures outside the studio, and it didn’t take Rock long to start feeling the same way.

Rock used to invite me to parties at his house, and he and I would go out to the clubs every now and then. Even then word was getting out that he was a homosexual. I surmised it because Henry Wilson was his agent, and Henry was a very swishy man with a stable of gay clients, including Tab Hunter. Henry got wind that a gossip tabloid was going to run a story about Rock being gay, so Henry arranged for his secretary to go out with Rock and later marry him to keep the rumormongers away. Rock liked women, and he had a good time with them, but he liked the other team even better.

•                           •                           •

•                           •                           •

M
y next big
break came near the end of 1949, when I was given one of the leads in
Sierra,
a western. Audie Murphy, the most decorated U.S. combat soldier in World War II, played the starring role of a horse breaker who’s wanted for a murder he didn’t commit. Murphy wasn’t more than five feet five inches tall, but he was as tough as any man I ever met. I’ve been told that he killed two hundred and fifty Germans while fighting in Europe and blew up five or six tanks. I don’t doubt it for a moment. If you want to know what heroism is, see
To Hell and Back,
the movie they made about his life. Murphy plays himself, and it’s quite a role.

Once again, the crew had lots of fun playing practical jokes. One day one of them came up to me with a rectangle of black velvet cloth, about the size of a diaper, and pinned it on my belt, above my backside.

I said, “What’s that for?”

“Get on your horse,” the crew member said. I obliged him, and then he took the lower edge of the cloth and attached it to the saddle. He said, “You can tell an amateur horseman because he bounces up and down in the saddle a lot when he rides. When you’re riding across the frame, we can see daylight between your ass and the saddle, and we can’t have that. So you’ve got to wear this black cloth on your ass.” When I started to sputter, everyone started laughing. You never knew when the next gag was coming your way, but it was a great way to pass the endless downtime between shoots. There’s lots of that when you’re making a movie, but I never minded. I would read the trade papers, hang out in my dressing room, or take a nap. I always made myself available, no matter how long the day was. I never complained.
All I wanted was the tip,
which meant being professional at all times.

I knew I was on my way in 1950 when the studio asked me to help publicize
Sierra.
Audie Murphy and Burl Ives were the big names in the picture, but when we held the premiere in San Francisco, I was the one who created a furor. Even though I hadn’t yet starred in a picture, a lot of teenage boys had seen me in my minor roles and had started to wear their hair like I did. Young girls would show up at the movie theater if they heard I was going to be there. Universal got to the point where they started sending me out to talk about pictures I wasn’t even in. I was the first of their young generation of actors to be used that way.

One of the first things the studio wanted from you was an attractive eight-by-ten glossy photo. When you signed a contract, the studio didn’t see you as a long-term investment. All the brass cared about was money, and with that eight-by-ten glossy, they were able to judge how attractive you were to the fans who bought movie tickets. As I went out on tour to promote
Sierra,
I began to realize how important that photograph really was: it had as much impact as your work in the film! It helped you become an icon for your fans, who wanted that photograph to hang up in their rooms.

I received direct confirmation of this from Kelly LeBrock, the actress and model who said the famous line “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful” in Pantene commercials. Kelly told me that when she was a kid, she had a poster of me in her bedroom, and before she came out of the bathroom, she would always put something on. She said she didn’t want me to see her nude.

At the premiere of
Sierra
in San Francisco, I was right there, standing in the theater lobby signing autographs. There were so many young girls carrying on in there that the owner of the place pleaded, “Get them out of here. They’re peeing on my carpet.” After they hustled me outside, hundreds of girls surrounded me, screaming like I was Frank Sinatra. And I didn’t even sing! I signed autographs in a frenzy, and then the PR people and I jumped in the limousine and made our getaway.

When we first got to San Francisco, the publicity department came up with a promotion where I would randomly knock on the doors of twelve houses, wait for the door to open, and then surprise the owner by saying, “Hi, I’m Tony Curtis. I’m starring in the movie
Sierra,
and you’re invited to the premiere. Here are a couple of tickets to the movie at the Loews San Francisco. Come enjoy the movie and join us for treats at the end of the show.”

I went to three houses without incident. I knocked on the door, and when someone answered, the PR guys and the photographer would jump out from behind the bushes and take pictures. When I went up to the porch of the fourth house, it was about eleven in the morning. I knocked on the door, and a beautiful woman in her forties, wearing a long silk gown, answered it.

She looked me up and down and said, “Hello. What have we here?”

I said, “My name is Tony Curtis.”

“I know who you are. Come on in.”

So I did, leaving the photographer and the PR guys still hidden behind me. I said, “We’re having a premiere of my movie, and I want to give you two tickets. You can bring a friend, and there’ll be refreshments.”

She said, “Come with me.” I followed her into a sitting room where there were three young women—one wearing a robe, another in a short dress, and the third wearing a smock. “Sit down,” the older woman said.

“I have my friends waiting at the door,” I said.

The woman said, “I’ll take care of them.” She left the room. The girl in the short dress asked me, “What are you doing here?”

“I’m on tour, promoting this picture that I’m in.”

She said, “What a handsome kid you are.”

“Thank you very much,” I said. Then she sat down next to me, took my hand, and kissed me. The older woman returned and said, “How was that? Did you enjoy that?” I said I did. She said, “She’ll keep you busy for a little while. I have some things I have to do.”

The girl in the short dress led me into a little bedroom down the hall. Then she took all her clothes off and lay down on the bed. Against my better judgment (I was supposed to be working, after all), I joined her. Who could resist? I never thought movie promotion could be so stimulating!

After we finished, I went back out to the sitting room, and one of the other girls started to take my hand, but I thought about my colleagues waiting outside and my conscience got the better of me. I said, “Listen, there are some more houses I have to go to now. Why don’t all of you come to the screening tonight?”

The girl in the robe said, “We’re working tonight.” I turned to the older woman and said, “Why don’t you call in sick?” I figured I’d boost morale by introducing my new lady friends to the other guys promoting the movie. After the premiere, I chose three other lucky PR guys, and we all went back to the women’s house. Everyone had a great time—just like I had that afternoon. And we added the cost of the champagne to Universal’s promotion expenses!

W
inchester ’73
was the first big-budget picture Universal put me in. The movie, starring Jimmy Stewart, was about a rifleman whose stolen gun passes through many hands. I had only two lines, but I was thrilled to play in a picture with Jimmy Stewart, and to work under a fine director like Anthony Mann. By this time Jimmy had starred in a long list of great pictures, including
The Philadelphia Story, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,
and
It’s a Wonderful Life.
Jimmy and Mann were a great team, and they had made some first-rate films together.

Jimmy was an incredibly nice person; in his case there was no difference between his lovable film persona and the man himself. When he showed up on the set for
Winchester ’73,
he came right over to me and said, “Hi, Tony, how are you?” You could almost hear the other guys standing around wondering,
Why would Jimmy Stewart know this guy?
They weren’t aware that I’d met Jimmy on my second day on the Universal lot, when I asked him if I could have my picture taken with him. Most guys would have forgotten all about a minor moment like that, but not Jimmy Stewart. He was a class act all the way.

The movie was shot mostly on the Universal lot and on some hilly property that Universal owned. Rock Hudson was in the film too, and we had a scene together up on top of a hill at the rear of a big country estate. Rock played the Indian carrying the gun of the movie title when he gets shot by actor Jay C. Flippen. I played a cavalry officer, and my job was to run up the hill, only to find Rock with the rifle in his hand, stone dead.

Shelley Winters was also in the movie. There had been no change in her manner since last we’d met, meaning that she was very unfriendly to everybody, including me. I observed how negatively people reacted to her, which was a very useful lesson for me. When I was on the set, I was determined to enjoy every minute of what I was doing and to make it fun for everyone else too. I felt that my success depended on it. This was how I expressed my insecurity. But Shelley had a different take on it; she preferred to act high and mighty, always looking for an opportunity to push her career. This was how she expressed her insecurity. Unfortunately, Shelley had no idea how she was shooting herself in the foot. But I never complained about her. And the studio rewarded my efforts with a raise to two hundred and twenty-five dollars a week, which made taking care of my parents a little less stressful for me.

In my next movie,
Kansas Raiders,
I again played alongside war hero Audie Murphy. We shot most of our scenes on a back lot. I had very few lines, but I did a lot of horseback riding. I played a member of the Dalton gang, and Audie played Jesse James. Everybody—including me—was afraid of Audie. I didn’t feel that way about many people, but Audie was different. At the time, he was dating an actress named Peggy Castle, a girl I didn’t particularly like. One day I was walking down a corridor at Universal, and Audie grabbed me by the lapel and pulled my face down to his. He snarled, “Did you say anything bad about Peggy Castle? She told me you were talking bad about her.”