American Prince

by Tony Curtis

  My next movie was Who Was That Lady? with Dean Martin and Janet. Its plot was so ridiculous that even Bob Hope turned it down. In it, Dean plays a television producer, and I play a college professor whose wife catches him kissing one of his students. I call my friend Dean to help me keep my wife, played by Janet. Janet and I were terrific in the film, but by this time our marriage didn’t have much life left in it. We’d been faking it for years now. We had two beautiful little daughters, Kelly and Jamie, but the relationship between Janet and me was miserable. We fought all the time. We had lots of reasons for disagreements, but having Janet’s father handling her business affairs was a constant thorn in my side.

  Truth be told, Janet and I still lived under the same roof, but that was about the extent of it. In the evening, she went out with her friends, and I went out with mine. I’d go to parties with my buddies, or go visit Hef in Los Angeles. Sometimes I’d fool around with one of Hef’s bunnies, but by now I no longer had feelings of guilt about my extramarital escapades. Quite the opposite; I knew these short-lived pairings actually made it easier to stay in my marriage. I could pay attention to someone other than my wife, who clearly didn’t love me anymore.

  When Lew Wasserman was still at MCA, he represented both Janet and me, and he also represented Alfred Hitchcock, a favorite client of Lew’s. Lew got Janet her role in Psycho, where Anthony Perkins stabs her to death in the shower. It was a small part, but it became the part for which she’ll always be remembered. It was a horrific scene, but what made it presentable was the stylized way Hitchcock shot it and edited it. I was very happy for Janet, because I was sure that all the attention she was getting for Psycho was going to result in her getting a lot of other movies.

  After Psycho came out, all the press wanted to talk about was the murder scene. Janet had never enjoyed media attention, and when the pressure of this new celebrity began to get to her, she started to drink a lot. And when Janet had a few drinks in her, she became a different person: belligerent, accusatory, and down right nasty. I didn’t want to provoke her rages, so I started staying away more and more. Eventually I decided I needed another life, but I had no idea where I was going to find one.

  • • •

  My next film was called The Rat Race, in which I costarred with Debbie Reynolds. It’s the story of a musician and a dance-hall hostess who share an apartment. What I remember most about that movie was the sparks that flew between Debbie and me, and I don’t mean the angry kind that I was seeing at home. Up to that point few of my leading ladies had been able to deny me. Debbie was one of the exceptions. We snuggled together quite nicely during the kissing scenes, and I spent a lot of time hanging out with her in her dressing room. In order for the sparks to turn into a full bonfire, however, Debbie and I needed a lot more time than we had on the set. Debbie had been in show business since she was a kid, and as a result she had a hard shell that was tough to crack.

  My next film after that was Spartacus, which was made by Universal, believe it or not. The only reason the studio went for it was that Kirk Douglas, who starred in the film, also produced the picture and offered it to Universal as a package. The studio never would have paid Kirk what he was asking in those days, but the package deal gave Universal a chance to get him cheap. In the movie, Kirk plays Spartacus, who leads a slave revolt. Laurence Olivier plays the Roman general out to stop him. I play a slave purchased by the general, and after the general tries to seduce me, I run away and join Spartacus.

  The screenwriter for the film was Dalton Trumbo, one of the writers who’d been blacklisted during the 1950s for supposedly being a Communist sympathizer. Trumbo had been writing under a pseudonym for the past ten years, but Kirk wanted him to get full credit for writing Spartacus, and as the producer, he made sure it happened. Trumbo was named in the credits as the writer, a brave move on Kirk’s part, and a historic decision that broke the power of the blacklist.

  When I first read the Spartacus script, I didn’t think it was anything special; it read like an adventure movie in the mold of Ben-Hur. But I was under contract to Universal, and I owed them a picture. Universal told me that I would only have to be on the picture for twelve days, but the exec who told me this didn’t know director Stanley Kubrick—or Kirk—very well. I didn’t wrap up this movie for four and a half months!

  Anthony Mann was the original director of Spartacus. When Mann began filming, Kirk didn’t like what he saw in the rushes. He wanted sharper performances from his all-star cast. I hadn’t started shooting my scenes yet, but I was told that Kirk and Anthony were bickering a lot. Not long after, Kirk fired him and hired Stanley Kubrick to replace him. Kirk had done a World War I movie with Kubrick called Paths of Glory, so they knew they could work together. That was an understatement. In fact, they understood each other so well that when I listened to them working out how they wanted to shoot a scene, I had no idea what they were talking about. They talked in shorthand and literally finished each other’s sentences.

  Stanley Kubrick told me that ever since he’d been a little kid he had loved taking pictures with his black-and-white Brownie camera. As a director he had an artist’s genius for putting his own imprint on a film, regardless of its content. He was like Elvis in that way. Stanley was also a perfectionist. He would shoot scenes, and then after shooting later scenes he’d go back and reshoot the earlier ones so that everything fit together flawlessly. The studio didn’t like that because it drove up costs, but Stanley didn’t care.

  One evening Kirk and I were doing a shot in which we were sitting and talking before a big battle. Behind us were a bunch of men being crucified. Kubrick had orchestrated a complex system for how he wanted those actors to moan and groan in between the lines of the conversation Kirk and I were having. Each crucified actor had a certain sound he was supposed to make on cue: the first guy was supposed to say “oooh,” and the second guy was supposed to say “ugh,” and the third guy was supposed to say “aaaah,” and so on. Their cue was a flag that Stanley waved at them.

  So Stanley said, “Roll ’em,” and Kirk and I started doing our scene. Stanley started waving his flag, and the guys on the crosses started moaning and groaning.

  I said, “Why is life like a pomegranate?” Ooooh!

  “Well,” Ugh! “a pomegranate, like life, can be eaten.” Aaaah!

  Marshall Green, the assistant director, was in charge of making sure the moaning and groaning was happening properly. At one point Stanley looked up and noticed that one actor farther up the hill wasn’t moving, or saying anything, and he pointed the guy out to Marshall. Stanley said, “Marshall, didn’t we assign him anything?”

  “Yeah, I assigned everybody a sound,” Marshall said.

  “Then how come this guy isn’t doing anything?”

  “Well, maybe he’s not paying attention,” Marshall said. “You want to do it again?”

  “Before we shoot any more, why don’t you go up there and find out what’s wrong with him?”

  So Marshall walked up the hill, finally stopped, and looked up at the guy on his cross. From where I was sitting, I could faintly hear Marshall’s voice as he yelled up at the guy: “What’s going on?” The guy didn’t say anything, so Marshall said, “Look, if you’ve got to pee in your pants, pee in your pants. Don’t worry. It’s only wardrobe.” Then Marshall stopped. He stood still and looked up at the guy for a few seconds, and then he turned around and slowly walked back down the hill to where Kubrick was waiting for him.

  Kubrick looked at Marshall, and Marshall said, “It’s a fucking dummy—a mannequin.” Kirk and I laughed so hard that we almost peed in our pants.

  Stanley Kubrick was constantly in conflict with Russ Metty, Universal’s top cameraman. Kubrick was a newcomer, and Metty was a veteran of some twenty-five years. For one scene that we shot in a tent, Stanley said he thought the lighting was too dark, but Russ thought there was plenty of lighting. Standing next to Russ’s chair was a light on a wheeled pole, so without getting up, Russ kicked the li
ght toward the actors. The light rolled into the shot, and Russ yelled, “Now I’m ready.” Stanley had his hands full with Russ, but somehow he kept the film moving forward.

  One of the highlights of making Spartacus was acting with Larry Olivier. This was the first time we had acted together in a movie. I loved Larry. He was a total character. He would sit and watch everything like a hawk. When things got crazy, as they often did, I would glance over at Larry, and the look on his face seemed to say, I know what I’m doing. I know you do, too. Don’t take the rest of it seriously. The film’s editors cut the one scene we did together, the famous hot-tub scene where he tries to seduce me with his “oysters and snails” line, but the scene was restored when the movie was reissued in 1991.

  One unusually powerful scene in the movie takes place near the end, when Spartacus and I are forced to fight to the death. Spartacus defeats me, and I say to him, “I love you, Spartacus, as I loved my own father.” He says, “I love you like the son I’ll never see,” and plunges his sword into my heart. The next morning the Romans crucify him, but before he dies, his wife comes and shows him his baby son, and she vows that their infant will grow up as a free man.

  I had no idea that Spartacus would have such power. I had thought this was going to be just one more sand-and-tits movie with a Roman twist, but I didn’t take into account the level of talent involved in every aspect of the picture. (Even Russ Metty fought through his drunken stupor to do an amazing job!) When the picture came out, I got as many raves as anyone, even though I had a small part.

  Having friends like Frank Sinatra meant I got a chance to meet some extraordinary people, and I don’t just mean Sam Giancana. One day Frank introduced me to his friend Jack Kennedy. Jack was a big fan of Hollywood movies, and of the beautiful women who starred in them. I saw Jack with Marilyn one time, but I couldn’t tell for sure whether they had any sort of relationship, although everyone now says they did. I also met Jack’s younger brother Bobby and played touch football with him. Bobby was quiet and soft-spoken, and I liked him a lot.

  Through Jack and Bobby I met their father, Joe. I later found out that Joe had always loved Janet because she had a great chest. Joe told me he loved watching my movies because I got all the girls, and because I reminded him of the kids he grew up with in Boston. I couldn’t get over it: this Irish Catholic guy was reminded of his childhood by a Hungarian Jewish kid!

  Maybe another reason Joe liked me was because I could introduce him to Hollywood starlets. The two of us attended a movie premiere party where I just happened to know a lot of people, so I went from girl to girl introducing him. “I want you to meet my friend Joe,” I’d say, and then I’d lean in and whisper, “He’s John Kennedy’s father.” The girls’ eyes widened, which was fun for Joe, and fun for me.

  After Jack Kennedy won the 1960 presidential election, Peter Lawford asked Janet to host a luncheon for Jackie Kennedy at our house. Although Jackie was the guest of honor, I hardly spoke to her; I must admit that I was intimidated by her elegance. She had extraordinary poise, and everything she wore seemed so perfect. I remember thinking, What should I call her? First Lady? Mrs. Kennedy? Jackie? I didn’t want to ex pose my ignorance, so I kept my distance. Later I discovered that Jackie was such a class act that she would have found a way to make me comfortable.

  In January of 1961, I was staying at the Sherry-Netherland in New York when Joe Kennedy invited me to come to his home in Palm Beach, Florida. Joe had his own DC-3. I didn’t like flying, but I loved Big Joe a lot, so the two of us got on his plane and flew to Joe’s huge Spanish-style house in Palm Beach. In the morning I’d swim and work out a little bit, while Joe read the papers and talked on the phone. Then we’d both watch the news on TV to find out what was going on in Washington.

  One evening we were sitting in Joe’s den when the phone rang, but it wasn’t the house phone I’d used earlier; this was a special phone, and Joe picked it up at once. He talked for a little while, and then said to me, “The president sends you his best wishes.” They talked a moment longer, and then Joe said to me, “He wants to read me his inauguration speech. No one has heard it as yet.”

  “Great,” I said. “I’ll go for a walk.”

  He said, “No, stay.” Then he said, “I’m ready, son, whenever you are.” He was silent for a while, as Jack recited his speech over the phone. Then Joe motioned for me to come over to the phone, lifted it away from his ear, and said, “I want you to hear this.” He said, “Say that again, son.” I put my ear to the phone, and I heard Jack Kennedy say, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” The words were absolutely electric; they gave me goose bumps, and I told the president-elect so.

  The night of the inauguration, Janet and I went to a party where Jack Kennedy was also in attendance. As we slowly made our way through the huge crowd, I heard someone say, “Tony, Tony.” I turned, and about fifteen feet away was President Kennedy, who said, “My dad ran an advance screening copy of The Great Impostor last night, and the scene of you pulling Edmond O’Brien’s tooth was the funniest thing we ever saw. I wanted to tell you that.”

  I said, “Thank you, Mr. President, I really appreciate that.” I knew I wasn’t likely to ever get a compliment to top that.

  My next film, directed by Delbert Mann, was an interesting movie about Ira Hayes, the Native American Marine who helped raise the American flag on Iwo Jima. It was called The Outsider, and it shows what happened to Ira Hayes after he became famous. While he was in the Marines, his best friend introduced Ira to alcohol, and after Ira got back from the war, his life fell apart. People tell me I should have won an Oscar for my portrayal of Ira, but even though a lot of people went to see the picture, there wasn’t enough buzz about it to move the Academy’s voters. But I loved playing this role; I felt a special empathy for anyone in pain, especially the pain of being shunted aside or treated poorly.

  If my movie career was going great guns, my personal life was a shambles. Janet was drinking heavily, and her love affair with the bottle was poisoning her life and our marriage. I wasn’t sure exactly what she was going through. Perhaps she was having a midlife crisis; after all, she had married me when she was very young. These days her career was going well, and her roles were getting better and better, but the bigger she became, the more discontented she was. She knew that no matter how successful she was, she could never compete with actors like Elizabeth Taylor, and it drove her insane. I certainly related to that. I could never compete with Marlon Brando, and sometimes that drove me crazy too.

  One afternoon in August of 1961, Janet’s mother, Helen, called me. She and Janet’s father, Fred, had divorced acrimoniously, but at this moment she was worried about him because she’d been trying to reach him all afternoon at his office without success. I didn’t see what the big deal was, but she asked if one of us could go look in on Fred. Janet wasn’t around—she was somewhere in the south of France, attending a film festival with Jeannie Martin, Dean’s wife, and the Kennedys—so I told Helen I’d drive over and check on him. Privately I thought Fred might be with his mistress, who just happened to be his ex-wife’s sister, but needless to say, I didn’t mention my suspicions. I hung up with Janet’s mother, hesitated for a moment before calling the police, and drove over to Fred’s office.

  I got there before the police did. I saw a light on in the office, and the door was unlocked. There was Fred, slumped over his typewriter, dead. I couldn’t tell how he’d died; there was no blood, no pills, and no gun. But in the typewriter was a note that read, “I hope you’re satisfied, you bitch.” I pulled the sheet of paper out of the typewriter and stuck it in my pocket. I lifted Fred off the typewriter and leaned him back in his chair. Then I called Helen and told her that her fears had been confirmed.

  Five minutes later the police showed up. They called an ambulance and took Fred away. Maybe I shouldn’t have removed that letter, but I didn’t want Janet’s mother to see it. The police later concluded that Fr
ed had died of natural causes, which was just as well.

  My next movie was Taras Bulba with Yul Brynner. The movie was going to be filmed in Argentina, and because I hated to fly, I booked passage on the S.S. America, which took three days to go from Miami to Argentina. Janet, the two girls, and I took the train from LA to Miami. Getting Janet to make the train trip was a major coup, because she didn’t like to do anything unless it happened quickly.

  Once we got to Miami, Janet and I started drinking in our hotel room, and she got very angry with me in front of the girls, screaming at me and complaining that my neuroses had forced her into this boat trip instead of going by airplane. Kelly and Jamie looked on as Janet raged at me and threw things. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t realize how strongly she felt about having to take our boat trip until we arrived in Florida, when it was too late to change our plans. But as Janet stood there showering me with abuse in front of my children, something shifted inside me; I realized I couldn’t take her outbursts anymore.

  The next morning, the four of us went down to the pier and boarded the boat to Argentina. Our time on board allowed me to have a lot of fun with Kelly and Jamie, who were five and three. We swam together every day in the pool. I loved this opportunity to be with the girls without any outside distractions, and I couldn’t help wishing I had spent more time with them instead of letting my work schedule keep me far from home. After we arrived in Argentina, Janet and the girls stayed for five or six days and flew home. After they left, I resolved that it was time for me to move out and move on. My marriage was over.