Oct. 23: Tony Curtis, Part I 
Fifty years ago, there were few Hollywood heartthrobs hotter than Tony Curtis. This month, the star of "Some Like It Hot" and "The Defiant Ones" published a memoir of those glory days in which he recounts in great detail his almost compulsive sex life, his troubled childhood, his celebrity feuds and his triumph over a late-career cocaine addiction. As gripping as the book was, the interview about the book was even better, more detailed, more telling.
In banter: Harrah's woes, the M blimp revisited and why didn't the Bellagio have a 10th birthday party.
Links:
Steve’s piece on Tony Curtis for USA Today is here
Tony Curtis’s Wikipedia entry is here
Jon Ralston’s take on the Palin’s Nevada appearance here
See pictures from the Palin rally and see the McCain song sheet music here
Read more about the Michelin star decisions here
The Arnold Knightley’s R-J piece on Harrah’s fiscal woes is here
5 comments:
no, seriously, folks. tony curtis talks about having semen down his leg. yum.
Frankly Steve I was not going to listen to this episode as I did not think I cared about Tony Curtis.
I was so wrong. What a fantastic interview. Not just your questions and how you handled Mr. Curtis but his energy. Did he say "Give me five."?
And the story about Central Park. Oh my! "Do men have that? ... You should have (that experience)."
I have a cd of 'Best of the Strip Podcast'. this episode is definetly going on the cd.
Steve, can you call Tony and ask if I bring a nice and big lunch can I come over to his house sometime and help him look for "The Book"?
I have never been so creeped out by an interview...ever. Perhpas it's because my only real impressions of Tny Curtis have to do with the fact that my mother (who is now 80) used to swoon whenever his movies were on TV. It seemed wrong to hear someone that my ageing mother swooned over was walking around a park with semen dripping down his leg and talking about his conquests like they were pieces of nice meat. Charming guy.
In case you're wondering this is in no way a criticism of the show or a complaint. As always Steve the interview gave me an interesting perspective on someone. Before listening I might have guessed Curtis would be totally self-absorbed but I'd never have pegged him for being a dirty old man. And actually I should thank you - you've saved me the embarrassment of buying my mum that book for Christmas - I think she'd rather not know those things about her idol :)
It was people like your mother who swooned over him then that made him the person he was and do the things he did and now, all these years later, he is simply telling what he experienced back then with people like your mother.
How is that creepy?
People swooning over him made him a bitter, narcisstic, sex-obsessed old man? I don't think so. That stuff is in your nature. My mother swooned over Paul Newman too and you never heard him talking in a derogatory way about his conquests (did you notice that Curtis really latched on to that word when Steve used it?). I imagine Newman and Curtis would have had similar experiences with people throwing themselves at them - but they chose to deal with that in very different ways and, in my opinion, the way Curtis dealt with it is creepy. It's not the fact Curtis bonked a bunch of women that was creepy: it was the way he talked about the women he bonked and the fact he really obviously didn't give a damn about anyone but himself.
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