Tony Curtis

Tony Curtis — American film actor born Bernard Schwartz who turned Bronx hustle into Hollywood glamour, then into late-career painting and candor — died in Henderson, Nevada, on September 29, 2010. He was eighty-five. Born June 3, 1925, in Manhattan and raised in the Bronx, he learned English after Hungarian Yiddish at home, survived a hard Depression childhood, and came back from Navy service determined that a mirror and a camera could rewrite a name. Some Like It Hot, Sweet Smell of Success, The Defiant Ones, and Spartacus showed range beyond the pretty-boy contracts of the 1950s; he chased drama as fiercely as comedy, even when gossip columns preferred the marriages and the hair. Later decades brought television, memoir, and acrylic canvases signed with the same flair he once brought to a close-up. He settled in the Las Vegas valley, still talking about craft as if the next take might save the picture. Henderson was home when cardiac arrest ended the long performance. He died there, leaving a filmography that still toggles between farce and steel. Bronx streets taught hunger; Universal soundstages taught polish. He never fully trusted either, which is why the best roles still feel like a man negotiating with his own reflection. He died in Henderson on September 29, 2010. Somewhere a saxophone case is still being mistaken for a lady's luggage. Curtis's gift was elastic charm — slipping from joke to jeopardy without dropping the audience. Notice Nearby keeps the death date so September 29 remembers the Bronx kid who made American movie stardom look like work.