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[RonPrice]

I’m not sure when or where Tony Curtis(1925-2010) first came into my life. Was it at the movies or on television? Perhaps it was in Houdini in 1953 when he was married to Janet Leigh. I was only nine at the time and in grade four. My mother had just joined the Baha’i Faith in Ontario. I was in love with baseball and Susan Gregory—little did she know. Perhaps I first saw him in Some Like It Hot in 1959. I had a job at the Roxy Theatre at the time as a marquee, the man who set the signboards up for the shows that arrived in town. I won the most valuable player in the midget baseball league that year in the little town of Burlington. As Bobby Darren’s song Mack-the-Knife was making its way to the top of the charts in October ‘59 I joined the Baha’i Faith. I was always impressed with my mother back then, but that would not always be the case.

Tony became famous and rich but, on reading about his life today, I realized he paid for his fame and wealth with his many marriages, his alcoholism, his addictions, the suicide of his son, indeed, a long list of tests and difficulties. I’ve had my problems, too; it is difficult to compare lives but, in some ways, it can’t be helped. Tony died this week and I learned more about him today than I knew in all his years of great popularity in the 1950s and 1960s when I was growing-up and coming to maturity at the age of 20 and 21 in 1964/5 when he starred in Sex and the Single Girl(1964) and The Great Race(1965).-Ron Price with thanks to Wikipedia, 2 September 2010.

I can understand why you got into art, Tony,
in the last 25 years of your life..age 60-85…
You were a handsome, dude, and kissed that
icon of beauty, Marilyn Monroe….Yes, you
got around, Tony, I must say…We did have
things in common: COPD1, our mothers had
mental illness; we went to college & we went
under contract at age 23 you with Universal
Pictures and me with DIAND2…..interested
in girls and money….worried about being a
failure. But so many differences, eh Tony?

You made your debut in 1949 when I was 5.
To my two marriages you had five and those
younger women you married who gave you
so much more sex or so you said, Tony…. I
wish you well in that Undiscovered Country,
Tony, that Land of Lights or so I am told!!!
What is life like now beyond the mortal coil?

1 Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease usually from smoking
2 Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

Ron Price
2 October 2010

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