We’ve all heard the sad news that actor Tony Curtis has passed away. Whenever a celebrity dies we’re all reminded of how they touched us and what we remember about them.
Tony was in over 140 movies, acting in some and doing voice-overs in others. He was most active in the 1950s, having roles in 32 movies during that time, and in the ‘60s, when he made 25 more.
Some of my personal favorites among his movies are:
"Houdini" (1953)
“The Vikings” (1958)
“The Vikings” (1958)
“Some Like It Hot” (1959) (of course)
“Operation Petticoat” (1959) (wonderful movie)
“Sparticus” (1960)
… and those classics; "Son of Ali Baba" (1952) and “The Prince Who Was A Thief” (1951)
I most especially loved “The Black Shield of Falworth.”(1954) It was just my cup of tea; filled with knights and jousts and horses and fair maidens with improbably long braids and fantasy-styled dresses and full frontal chivalry. An interesting note is that the heroine in that movie was Vivian Leigh, who was Tony’s wife at the time (and the mother of actress Jamie Lee Curtis, by the way).
For years I thought this was the movie in which the Bronx-born actor spoke that famously ill-pronounced line, “Yonda lies da castle of my fadduh da King” but I was wrong. I watched that movie over and over looking for that infamous line and never heard it. The explanation is simple: the line was in another movie, “Son of Ali Baba”(1952). Actually, some sources say that “The Prince Who Was a Thief” (1951) contains that line but since I haven’t seen either since some time in the ‘50s or ‘60s I guess I’ll just have to find a copy of both and watch them.
Now that I think of it, I’d love to see those two movies again and discover for certain which one contains that wonderfully pronounced line. Oh yeah – they truly don’t make movies like those any more.
It’s probably for the best…
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