Tony Curtis - Early Life

Early Life

Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz in the Bronx, one of three sons of Helen (née Klein) and Emanuel Schwartz. His parents were Hungarian Jewish immigrants from Mátészalka, Hungary. Hungarian was Curtis's only language until he was five or six, postponing his schooling. His father was a tailor and the family lived in the back of the shop — the parents in one corner and Curtis and his brothers Julius and Robert in another. His mother once made an appearance as a participant on the television show You Bet Your Life, hosted by Groucho Marx. Curtis said, "When I was a child, Mom beat me up and was very aggressive and antagonistic." His mother was later diagnosed with schizophrenia. His brother Robert was also institutionalized with the same mental illness.

When Curtis was eight, he and his brother Julius were placed in an orphanage for a month because their parents could not afford to feed them. Four years later, Julius was struck and killed by a truck. Curtis joined a neighborhood gang whose main crimes were playing hooky from school and minor pilfering at the local dime store. When Curtis was 11, a friendly neighbor saved him from what he felt would have led to a life of delinquency by sending him to a Boy Scout camp, where he was able to work off his energy and settle down. He attended Seward Park High School. At 16, he had his first small acting part in a school stage play.

Curtis enlisted in the United States Navy after the attack on Pearl Harbor and war was declared. Inspired by Cary Grant's role in Destination Tokyo and Tyrone Power's in Crash Dive (1943), he joined the Pacific submarine force. Curtis served aboard a submarine tender, the USS Proteus until the end of the Second World War. On September 2, 1945, Curtis witnessed the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay from his ship's signal bridge about a mile away.

Following his discharge from the Navy, Curtis attended City College of New York on the G.I. Bill. He then studied acting at the The New School in Greenwich Village under the influential German stage director Erwin Piscator. His contemporaries included Elaine Stritch, Walter Matthau, Bea Arthur, and Rod Steiger. While still at college, Curtis was discovered by Joyce Selznick, the notable talent agent, casting director, and niece of film producer David O. Selznick. He later claimed it was because he "was the handsomest of the boys".

In 1948, Curtis arrived in Hollywood, at age 23. When he was placed under contract at Universal Pictures, he changed his name from Bernard Schwartz to Tony Curtis. The first name was from the novel Anthony Adverse and "Kurtz" from a surname in his mother's family. Although Universal Pictures taught him fencing and riding, in keeping with the cinematic themes of the era, Curtis admitted he was at first only interested in girls and money. Neither was he hopeful of his chances of becoming a major star. Curtis's biggest fear was having to return home to the Bronx as a failure:

I was a million-to-one shot, the least likely to succeed. I wasn't low man on the totem pole, I was under the totem pole, in a sewer, tied to a sack.