Tony Curtis

Everywhere I go in the world, people know me and recognise me and really show affection for me.

I like Vegas for its spontaneity.

I’ve been in the movies for 50 years, I’ve made 130 some-odd movies.

I’ve just opened a show in Florida, although I also have many pieces on display around the world.

It’s such a human condition, whether you’re a great track star or a great knitting person or you paint watercolors – someone knows who you are.

They gave me away as a prize once – a Win Tony Curtis For A Weekend competition. The woman who won was disappointed. She’d hoped for second prize – a new stove.

I was born in and worked in a period that could be called enviable.

I wouldn’t be caught dead marrying a woman old enough to be my wife.

For instance, I always have one hanging in Budapest in the mayors office.

We often don’t think of them, we think of the great wars and the great battles, but what about losing a son or a daughter, or a girl losing her husband or vice versa? I think of the people who never got the chance to have the opportunities I had.

The movie business is very twisted, out of site, out of mind, you know.

At 17, I dreamed of seeing the world. At 19, I had been around the world and back.

It is for the latter that I always wanted to be an actor: to play characters who are always on the move.

Yes I’m still working, but my life’s no longer filled with it.

But my longevity is due to my good timing.

I joined the Navy hoping to be submariner and ended up in the sub service aboard a tender in the Pacific.

I enlisted when I was a boy. The Navy looked after me like my mother. It fed me, took care of me and gave me wonderful opportunities.

I want the public to know that it will be an honor for me to meet them and spend a few special moments with all those who helped me through my filmed career.

My whole world before I joined the Navy was my neighborhood in the Bronx.

Its not age as much as the experiences I have had.

I can’t sit around and wait for the telephone to ring.

While you’re doing it, you don’t really know what you’re doing.

But where there is no art show, I would still be painting.

The government gave me enough money to go to acting school.

Even on a personal note, my dressing table downstairs is crowded with things, like a mini landscape. It’s a city with buildings and towers and roads. There’s a pool and a little park. When I move something around it becomes a different tableau.

The service meant so much to me. You don’t know privileged I feel and how lucky I am to have served.

I’m world famous, everywhere I go there are people who love me because of I’ve been able to bring them some joy from the movies I’ve made.

I’ve made 122 movies, and I daresay there’s a picture of mine showing somewhere in the world every day.

I look at everything in an artistic way.

Now I’m a painter. That was another opportunity I was able to pursue, I’ve been painting all my life, now it’s become a second career because of my success in the movies.

I don’t know what organically grown chickens are; I’ve never seen one.

Every movie I’ve been in has ended up on television.

I will always remember this summer day in Paris, when I was to perform a great acrobatic move. I can still see myself stepping on the ring of a packed circus along real performers.

Painting is much more than therapy to me its a way of life.

If you know how to live in Vegas you can have the best time.

I enjoy being recognized whatever environment I’m in.

Like an opera singer, I am able to sing out my song in paint.

I used to be good friends with my depression, saying oh I’m so depressed, or life is terrible.