FILM/ TONY CURTIS DIES AT 85

Tony Curtis, the dashingly handsome film star of the 1950s and `60s who is best remembered for his hilarious turn in drag in Billy Wilder's classic comedy "Some Like It Hot" and for his dramatic roles in "The Defiant Ones" and "Sweet Smell of Success," died last night. He was 85. Curtis died at his Las Vegas home. One of Hollywood's most durable actors, Curtis appeared in more than 100 movies and was nominated for a best actor Oscar for the "The Defiant Ones," the 1958 convict escape film in which he was chained to his costar, Sidney Poitier. In 1960, Curtis starred with Douglas in the swashbuckling "Spartacus," a box-office hit that was also notable for the bathtub scene that didn't appear in the original but was restored in the 1991 re-release. In the scene, Laurence Olivier, playing a Roman general, tries to seduce Curtis, the young slave, in dialogue alluding to one's preference for oysters or snails. Also during the '60s, Curtis played multiple roles in "The Great Impostor" and he had to choose between the love of the Cossacks and the love of his life in "Taras Bulba." He played a neurotic orderly in "Captain Newman, M.D.," was the white-suited daredevil in "The Great Race" and a killer in "The Boston Strangler." Curtis made more than 60 feature and TV films after "The Boston Strangler," including "The Mirror Crack'd" in 1980 with Angela Lansbury and a string of forgettable movies such as "The Lobster Man from Mars" and "The Mummy Lives." He also appeared numerous times on television sit-coms or dramatic series or as a talk-show guest. In the late 1960s, he frequently appeared on shows as "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In."

Starting out in 1949 as a contract player at Universal, Curtis broke out as a leading Hollywood actor in 1952 with "Son of Ali Baba." The actor made the well-regarded "Houdini" in 1953 and from 1956 to 1959 starred in a string of critical and popular hits: "Trapeze," "Mister Cory," "Sweet Smell of Success," "The Vikings," "Kings Go Forth," "The Defiant Ones," "The Perfect Furlough," "Some Like It Hot" and "Operation Petticoat." His characters varied from swashbuckling heroes to smarmy press agents and showed, when the role called for it, a genuine comic talent. And his co-stars were the biggest names in Hollywood: Burt Lancaster, Marilyn Monroe, Cary Grant, Kirk Douglas, Frank Sinatra, Poitier, Lemmon, Natalie Wood and, in "The Vikings," "Houdini" and other films, his 1st wife, Janet Leigh, pictured above. For many film fans, Curtis' most memorable role was in "Some Like It Hot," the 1959 film in which he and Jack Lemmon played small-time jazz musicians who witness the St. Valentine's Day massacre in Chicago and, pursued by gangsters who want to kill them too, pose as women in order to escape with an all-female jazz band bound for Miami. In 2000, the American Film Institute named "Some Like It Hot," pictured above, the best comedy of the 20th century. Throughout Curtis' life, women loved him, and he loved women. He was reportedly married 6 times, most famously to actress Janet Leigh in 1951, in the Hollywood marriage of their era, bigger than Debbie and Eddie and long before Liz and Dick. The Curtises were married 11 years. He is survived by his family, including his daughter, the actress Jamie Lee Curtis.