Great Romances of the 20th Century (1997) s01e07 Episode Script

ln the Hollywood of the mid-1950s there was no more glamorous or handsome husband-and-wife team than Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh.
They were made for the movies and the movies were made for them.
Their faces smiled out from the covers of movie magazines - visions of impossible glamour.
They were married for 11 years.
Many of their loyal fans refuse to believe that Tony and Janet are not married still.
Tony Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz in New York in 1925.
He was the son of Jewish immigrants from Hungary.
He had a tough upbringing during the Depression, and in later years Hollywood publicists would glamorise Curtis's ''delinquent youth''.
But in the best Dead-End tradition he was guided from the path of crime by a sympathetic school truancy officer.
Tony's parents were Orthodox Jews, but there was a bigger influence on his life than the synagogue.
He was hooked by the movies.
''l was born in 1925, so the silent movies had just finished by the time l was old enough to go to the movies, which was 1930-31 so l must have seen those early first movies and l had no other way of seeing it, l mean l saw it for the first time just like anyone else around me did.
Look how lucky l was because l saw those moving figures on that screen talking l said that's for me.
l couldn't imagine any other thing l'd want to do''.
Bogart and Cagney were his heroes This guy's got enough on us to - He won't talk.
- He'd better not.
As was debonair Cary Grant, with whom Tony was to co-star over 20 years later in Operation Petticoat.
The movies had cast their spell over Bernie Schwartz.
But Hollywood seemed an impossible dream to a Jewish boy from New York.
When the United States entered World War ll, Bernie joined the US Navy and served in the Pacific aboard the submarine Dragonette.
Bernie whiled away days on the Dragonette fantasising about becoming an actor.
He was eventually discharged from the Navy after sustaining an injury while loading torpedoes.
But not before he had seen endless reruns of a Cary Grant actioner of 1939, Gunga Din.
Of such stuff dreams are made While on leave, Bernie had paid a visit to the famous Hollywood Canteen, where the stars entertained the troops.
lt was another small step on his own path to stardom.
After leaving the Navy, Tony took advantage of the Gl Bill to study acting at Erwin Piscator's Dramatic Workshop in New York.
A stint in a Greenwich Village production of Golden Boy took him straight to Hollywood.
An East Coast talent agent had spotted him and in 1949 he was signed by Universal, joining hopefuls like Rock Hudson and Piper Laurie in the final flowering of the old-style studio system.
James Stewart was on hand to give a warm welcome to Universal's latest recruit.
At the MGM studio, there was another young hopeful, Janet Leigh.
Born in California in 1927, Leigh had studied music at the College of the Pacific before eloping, aged 15, with 19-year-old John Carlyle.
The marriage lasted only a few months, and later Janet married bandleader Stanley Reames The elopement left a scar, as Leigh recalled over 50 years later.
''Well, the scar was that l realized that you know l had done wrong, and somehow it always made me feel that l wasn't good, that l was a bad person because of that, that l had made this mistake.
l made my parents very unhappy l was ashamed.
That was the scar.
'' Leigh's big break came when retired MGM star Norma Shearer spotted her photograph in the ski lodge where Janet's mother worked.
The beautiful Mrs Reames was whisked to Hollywood tojoin a massive studio machine which could boast ''more stars than there are in the heavens''.
Mrs Stanley Reames became Janet Leigh.
Green and unsophisticated, but ravishingly beautiful, she made her debut in 1947 opposite Van Johnson in The Romance of Rosy Ridge.
All those nights l was away from the farm.
l dreamed of nothing but being up here.
Place all fixed up and you waiting for me as l came up the trail.
lt's our, Lissy.
Nothing's gonna keep us from having it now.
She soon gained confidence, co-starring with Van Heflin in Act of Violence in 1948.
Janet divorced Stanley Reames a year later.
She was moving up the Hollywood ladder.
Meanwhile, at Universal, Bernie Schwartz was undergoing a similar, if slightly less spectacular, transformation into Tony Curtis.
He was well down the cast list in movies like City Across the River, playing the hoodlum he might himself have become.
But he made an impression in 1950 in The Prince Who was a Thief, as a Bronx Ali Baba with a spectacular haircut.
Tony also had a clear-eyed appreciation of how to get on.
''l quickly surmised or kinda figured out what l thought, Michael, was necessary for me to become successful because once l got out there l released that l was allowed in and no-one was going to get me out, you know, because l looked around and l saw all the people surrounding me and l didn't see anyone who was better or worse than l.
You know l found myself among many ignorant people and l being an ignorant person at the time felt l had as much chance as anyone else, but you have to play the game you have to find a way of influencing the people around you, to use you a bit more than someone else, and the way you did that was by observation, by seeing what the morays and the requirements were for you and you quickly decided what you were willing to do and what you were willing not to do and each one of us, l speak for myself at the time with 1500 young players l speak now only of actors and actresses l'm sure this process works for everybody - writers, directors in the movies and also l'm sure in other professions.
l decided quickly where l felt l should put the emphasis and what l should de-emphasise, you know.
l found everybody used to poke themselves and say really l hate the way this guy talks her comes the gangster l mean l like the New York sound so l just embellished it l made it sound even tougher than it did, you know, and if l felt l was in a circle of people that didn't like it so much l toned it down.
But l did realize that l must improve myself.
'' And improve he did, in the process receiving 10,000 letters a week begging for a lock of that famous hair.
While Curtis served his apprenticeship at Universal, Janet Leigh's career was relaunched at RKO by that extraordinary Tinseltown Svengali, Howard Hughes.
Hughes was taking time off from his aeronautical adventures to test RKO to destruction.
Janet's third for RKO was Jet Pilot, a kind of Cold war remake of Ninotchka, in which she played a Soviet spy romancing fighter pilot Wayne.
There's a lot of action.
ln the air And on the ground.
While the storyline spins wildly out of control.
- Have you had many - Many what? women.
High drama alternates with slapstick.
Give me back my skirt! One minute l want to kill you and the next minute l want to kiss you and Kiss you and Kiss you.
ls this a collision course l'm flying? Drop your dive brakes.
You're right on top of it.
Even by Hughes' eccentric standards, Jet Pilot remains a remarkable curiosity.
And, inevitably, he stepped in to romance his leading lady.
Leigh recalls ''He wanted to date me and he wanted to marry me and l didn't want to date him and l didn't want to marry him.
l mean l kept saying why don't you act like a normal human being and ask me out, because he would arrange to be where l was, you know, l would have a date with somebody and there would be all of a sudden a third place and then it would be for him and l'm thinking l don't like being manipulated.
l mean l may be naive and l'm from a small town but l'm not dumb.
So l said to him he said well, alright, will you go out with me, and l said no.
l was kind of bad, l mean that was being bitchy.
But then l thought aha, l said okay.
l'll go out with you with my mother and father because l lived with my mother and father and l thought that would turn him off and he said alright, so l went out with him with my mother and father at the Sportsmen Lodge and the three of them had a wonderful time well they were the same age, you know.
To me he was an old man.
'' lt was while she was making Jet Pilot that Leigh met the considerably younger Tony Curtis for the first time.
He later wrote, ''lt just devastated me to look at this woman.
l just wanted her to be mine''.
But their studios were not so ecstatic.
''Well, they acted as if they didn't like it at the beginning, what the motive of that was l still don't know, because l realized after we were married that they couldn't wait to rush us into the pictures together you know, because they were exploiting that may be the word exploit isn't the proper word but it certainly didn't bother them, you know.
l'm sure there was some l remember there was some opposition to it like two or three people at the studio said why incumber yourself at this time in your career.
l didn't think it was the fact they felt they didn't like the idea that made it attractive to me.
'' Tony and Janet were married in New York on the 4th of June 1951.
Jerry Lewis was the best man.
The couple honeymooned in Paris.
Back home the studios, reconciled to their newjoint property, prepared to put a brave face on it.
lt did not take their executives long to realise that the Curtis-Leigh marriage provided the perfect platform for a screen partnership.
Tony and Janet would make five movies together.
Janet remembers ''But Universal felt that his appeal as the Bobby Sockster idol or something would diminish but didn't seem to hurt Douglas Fairbanks Jnr.
We just said look our careers depend on the fact that we're single we don't have much of a career anyway, so to heck with it and what happened was just the opposite.
Our appeal grew rather than diminished and l remember one time we arrived in Boston and you know hundreds of people were there and this one little girl just got right alongside me and said you know when are we going to have our baby, - and it was just like - That was scary.
and it was just like they lived the ideal couple with us.
'' Tony and Janet's first movie together was the 1953 Houdini, a breakthrough for Tony that established him as a bankable leading man.
Years later Janet revealed: ''ln our work together, there was no question about billing.
My husband came first l was his wife, and l wasn't going to emasculate him and take top billing just because l'd been in the business longer.
When l was single, it was me, career.
When l was married it was husband, career.
That's the way it had to be for me.
'' For their fans, Tony and Janet were Hollywood's perfect couple, the Fifties teen set equivalent of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford.
Movie-goers couldn't get enough of Janet and Tony.
Fan magazines fought for every scrap of information about them.
The Curtises obliged, even moving into a mansion near Pickfair, the home of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, the golden couple of the silents.
They were Hollywood's new Golden Couple, and were soon to be teamed again.
The early Fifties saw a slew of Technicolor knights in armour adventures, among them MGM's Knights of the Round Table.
Universal's contribution was The Black Shield of Falworth, distinguished by Tony's firm jaw and Janet's heaving bosom.
The movie contains the oft-quoted line delivered by Tony - ''Yonda lies da cassel of my fadduh''.
But Curtis wanted more than the adulation of the bobby-soxers.
He yearned for critical respectability.
As he put it ''Because l'd been able to create myself l didn't change my name from Bernard Schwartz to Tony Curtis because l wanted to get into the movies primarily but because l wanted to be my own man, l wanted to be a creation of myself l don't want to be part of a background of someone else's wishes and ideas, and morays and religion l want to be my own fellow.
And that's what l started and tried to do and it was through the audience's support that l was able to make it, not because of some producer because he would just shoot me down and hire someone else - he couldn't care less about me.
'' The success of the 1956 Trapeze had established Curtis alongside stars like Burt Lancaster and Gina Lollobrigida.
But critical recognition of Curtis' range as an actor came in a rush with The Defiant Ones, which co-starred Sidney Poitier.
Go on, tell me all that big talk about Charlie Potatoes, When the chains of and nobody's chasing you.
Come on.
You can't, can you? You can't because you're nothing.
You're not even a man! You're a monkey on a stick.
That cracker mob back there, they pull the string and you jump.
A year earlier, Curtis had been superb as the press agent Sidney Falco in Sweet Smell of Success.
Grovelling on all fours to Burt Lancaster's vicious JJ Hunsecker.
Sidney, l don't do this sort of thing.
- What sort of thing? - This sort of thing.
You need him for a favour, don't you? So do l.
l need his column tonight.
ln 1956 Tony and Janet had their first child, a daughter, Kelly.
Janet recalls ''Er, we were married in 51 so it was five years later before l had Kelly.
l had a few miscarriages you know, so we very much hoped for a baby.
lt was a very big moment.
'' Another big moment came in 1959 with Tony's sizzling comic performance in Some Like lt Hot.
During location shooting for Some Like lt Hot, Tony was able to create a legendary impersonation of Cary Grant.
Janet was there, too, along with daughter Kelly.
Some Like lt Hot remains a classic comedy, but working with volatile co-star Marilyn Monroe proved to be an ordeal for the affable Curtis.
Marilyn's antics stretched his usual good humour to the limit.
ln 1958, Janet had a second daughter, Jamie Lee.
And she was once again teamed with Tony in the full-blooded adventure of The Vikings.
Filmed on location in Scandinavia, The Vikings pitted Tony against an eye-patched Kirk Douglas, in exceptionally violent and vengeful mood.
l want this slave alive.
The sun will cross the sky 1,000 times before he dies.
And you'll wish 1,000 times After dealing with Tony, Kirk turns his one good eye firmly on the fair Janet.
lf you touch me, l'll kill myself.
There's a sword to do it with.
Because l'm going to touch you.
Come on.
Kick! Bite! Scratch! Come on.
l will not lift one finger to resist you.
At the peak of their success, fault lines began to appear in Tony and Janet's marriage.
The perfect couple's relationship was unravelling.
During the summer of 1961, Janet holidayed with the Kennedy family - with whom she and her husband had become close - before returning home to mourn the death of her father.
ln March 1962, Tony and Janet officially separated.
lt was a time of great pain but Janet retains many happy memories of her 11 year-marriage.
''l think that what happened is, um, l never negate the beginning of our relationship l never will or have because that wouldn't be true.
l mean what we started together was wonderful and um why would we have got married.
'' After a divorce in Mexico, Janet married stockbroker Robert Brandt.
Tony Curtis was also soon remarried, to Christine Kaufman, his co-star in Taras Bulba.
l love you, Andrei, l will always love you.
You know that.
l love you.
But l can't let you fight against your own people.
l can't do it.
You're a Cossack, Andrei.
l'm a man before l'm a Cossack.
Don't let them use me.
Kaufman and Curtis were divorced in 1967.
Tony has married three more times.
lt is all too easy to allow Janet Leigh's marriage to Tony Curtis to overshadow her power as an actress.
ln 1958 she was superb as the bride in jeopardy in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil.
''Hold her legs''.
And in 1960, with Alfred Hitchcock and a motel shower, she reached her peak in Pyscho.
ln 1980 she appeared alongside daughter Jamie Lee Curtis in The Fog, reminding audiences of what they had been missing during her absence from the screen.
ln 1984 Janet published her autobiography, There Really Was a Hollywood.
The launch, which she attended with her daughter Kelly, was a fitting reminder of the days when she was one of Hollywood's brightest stars.
After the Fifties, Tony Curtis' career combined a great many potboilers with some outstanding performances As Albert de Salvo in The Boston Strangler And Senator Joe McCarthy in lnsignificance.
ln the 1980s, Tony emerged from alcohol and addiction to establish himself as a sought-after painter.
''The same time l was making movies l was painting, l was drawing, you know.
One didn't take one didn't overload the other.
l am not an actor who paints or a painter who acts.
'' He remains a fluent raconteur of the days, fifty years ago, when he became a star.
Every picture tells a story.
''That first Western l was in was called the Kansas Raiders.
The first horse l saw was in New York City pulling ice wagons, and there l am dressed as a cowboy and they throw me on this horse and off we go.
l fall off the horse and the horse takes off.
One of the guys came running over and says see if Tony's alright and the stuntmen say Tony? We've got all the actors in the world we need we only have four horses and off they went after the horses!'' Although the glamour of the early Fifties has long faded, Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis retain a special place in the hearts of movie fans.
ln the realm of nostalgia, they are still together.
Janet Leigh reflects on the shifting perceptions of her past.
''lt it's funny, when you write a book you talk about days gone by and it's so easy to put today's head on those young shoulders and that's not a true depiction of what it was, because it's easy to say today what is obvious, you know what is obvious and you can look back and say obviously, but not then.
'' Time has moved on, but the memories remain, of a handsome and glamorous couple in the full flush of stardom.
Who were able to move on from their youthful successes Let's not question flesh for wanting to remain flesh.