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.
— Tony Curtis
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.
The government gave me enough money to go to acting school.
At 17, I dreamed of seeing the world. At 19, I had been around the world and back.
I like Vegas for its spontaneity.
Yes I'm still working, but my life's no longer filled with it.
For instance, I always have one hanging in Budapest in the mayors office.
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.
I used to be good friends with my depression, saying oh I'm so depressed, or life is terrible.
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.
It is for the latter that I always wanted to be an actor: to play characters who are always on the move.
I've made 122 movies, and I daresay there's a picture of mine showing somewhere in the world every day.
I don't know what organically grown chickens are; I've never seen one.
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.
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.
The service meant so much to me. You don't know privileged I feel and how lucky I am to have served.
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.
But my longevity is due to my good timing.
The movie business is very twisted, out of site, out of mind, you know.
I've just opened a show in Florida, although I also have many pieces on display around the world.
I look at everything in an artistic way.
Its not age as much as the experiences I have had.
While you're doing it, you don't really know what you're doing.
I enjoy being recognized whatever environment I'm in.
Every movie I've been in has ended up on television.
I wouldn't be caught dead marrying a woman old enough to be my wife.
My whole world before I joined the Navy was my neighborhood in the Bronx.
I've been in the movies for 50 years, I've made 130 some-odd movies.
I joined the Navy hoping to be submariner and ended up in the sub service aboard a tender in the Pacific.
If you know how to live in Vegas you can have the best time.
I can't sit around and wait for the telephone to ring.
Everywhere I go in the world, people know me and recognise me and really show affection for me.
But where there is no art show, I would still be painting.
Like an opera singer, I am able to sing out my song in paint.
Painting is much more than therapy to me its a way of life.
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.
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.
I was born in and worked in a period that could be called enviable.
