Hollywood lost two big talents this week. Screen legend Tony Curtis died Wednesday at his Las Vegas home of a cardiac arrest. He was 85.
Curtis grew up in the Bronx and tragedy followed him throughout his childhood. The family was poor, briefly giving the children to an orphanage because they couldn’t feed them. His older brother Julius was killed at age 12 when he was hit by a truck, and both his mother and younger brother Robert suffered from schizophrenia. Curtis dropped out of high school to join the Navy during WWII.
Once out of the military, Curtis decided to study acting, saying “I was a good-looking kid. That’s the only reason I got into the movies.” Good-looking he was and Curtis soon attracted attention in Hollywood. He ended up making over 150 movies, including The Defiant Ones with Sidney Poitier and the hilarious Some Like It Hot with Marilyn Monreo and Jack Lemmon.
But, Curtis was also a celebrity – someone whose private life the public loved to follow and he never disappointed. He married actress Janet Leigh in 1951. That married produced actress daughters Kelly and Jamie Lee, but ended bitterly after 12 years. Curtis would marry five more times (Christine Kaufmann from 63-67, Leslie Allen from 68-82, Andria Savio from 83-92, Lisa Deutsch 93-94, and Jill Vandenberg from 98 until his death) and have two more daughters (Alexandra and Allegra with Kaufmann) and two sons (Benjamin and Nicholas with Allen). He romanced his Hot costar Marilyn Monroe as well as Natalie Wood.
Curtis never forgot his Jewish Hungarian roots, founding the Emanuel Foundation for Hungarian Culture to preserve synagogues and cemeteries in Hungary.
Also passing away this week was comedian Greg Giraldo. Giraldo, 44, accidentally overdosed in his New Jersey hotel room earlier in the week and passed away yesterday.
A regular on many Comedy Central projects, Giraldo graduated from Harvard Law School and actually practiced law for about a year before leaving to pursue his real passion – comedy. He performed regularly at the Comedy Cellar in Manhattan. A regular panelist on “Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn,” Giraldo starred in the short lived shows “Common Law” and “The Greg Giraldo Show” on Comedy Central. He made many appearances on “The Late Show with David Letterman” and “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” and was a judge on last season’s “Last Comic Standing” on NBC. But, many will remember him from Comedy Central’s annual celebrity roasts, including the last one of David Hasselhoff.
Divorced, Giraldo leaves behind three sons.
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