Tony Curtis at the Club: A Salute to WWII Veterans

Five days before he turned 80, Tony Curtis had the NPC ballroom full of World War II veterans and their families hooting with laughter at his stories.

No one in the room saw a slightly puffy, faded movie star. Behind the microphone, Tony Curtis was the dashing, sexy, mischievous screen idol of the 1950s. When he told the story of Marilyn Monroe, the laughter didn’t stop for a full five minutes.

A dressmaker had to take the measurements of Curtis and Jack Lemmon, who wore women’s dresses in “Some Like it Hot.” The dressmaker also fitted their co-star, Marilyn Monroe, and told the ingénue that Curtis’ derriere was better than hers. Monroe’s comeback involved another part of her anatomy, and I can’t figure out how to tell you the punch line without causing the editors to cut out the entire vignette. Use your imagination.

For all his stardom – decades of it – Curtis remained in solidarity with others who fought in World War II. That’s why he was at the Club that morning in May 2004 at a re-creation of a World War II canteen. For three years during the war, the Club hosted a Saturday afternoon canteen for enlisted personnel. No brass were allowed, although civilian bigwigs were admitted, as long as they didn’t speak for more than two minutes.

Curtis, who served in the Navy under his birth name of Bernard Schwartz, said the GI Bill allowed him to study acting after the war, head to Hollywood and become a movie star.
“I thought I was really smart because they kept sending me to school,’’ he said of his first 18 months in the Navy. It wasn’t until later that he discovered that boys under 18 weren’t shipped overseas; Curtis had enlisted at 16 ½.

Curtis died Sept. 29 at age 85.

-- Sylvia Smith, [email protected]