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Offsides; Interview with Tony Curtis
Aired June 02, 2005 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Keen-eyed motorheads will instantly recognize this sweet ride as a good condition '75 Ford Escort GL. What would you give me for it? Wait, consider, it was once registered to one Karol Wojtyla, Pope John Paul II. An Illinois man bought it 10 years ago and planned to auction it this weekend, but a family spat over who really owns the erstwhile private pope mobile needs to be resolved first. Check it out.
(STOCK MARKET REPORT)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: In San Francisco, the public relations director for the 49ers earns his 15 minutes of fame, or perhaps more accurately 15 minutes of infamy. It happened when his idea of in-house locker room humor goes public.
Reporter Rita Williams with our San Francisco affiliate KTVU has more on an outrageous fumble and the outrage it caused.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RITA WILLIAMS, CNN AFFILIATE KTVU REPORTER (voice over): This is the videotape causing all of the ruckus. San Francisco 49er public relations director Kirk Reynolds, taking over Gavin Newsom's office as mayor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm here in San Francisco. It's a beautiful, diverse, tremendous city.
WILLIAMS: And then, Reynolds takes a tour of the city, ostensibly to teach 49er players how to deal with the diverse media here; along the way, making off-color jokes about everything from the mayor to gay marriages to the city's Chinese community.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) feels good. He feels good now.
WILLIAMS: And liberally featuring women in various states of undress.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are women in the locker room. There are women in the locker room. So, grab a towel.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's patently offensive. This is a piece of electronic excrement.
WILLIAMS: The team saw the video in August. The mayor saw it yesterday after someone leaked it to "The Chronicle."
MAYOR GAVIN NEWSOM, SAN FRANCISCO: I'm used to the belittling, as they attempted to do in the video. But it wasn't right to do it to the Asian community and to the Chinese community. It was wrong to do it to the gay-lesbian community. It was wrong to exploit women as they were exploited in this video. The video is reprehensible.
WILLIAMS: And the man responsible for making the tape couldn't agree with the mayor more.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The intention certainly was good. I mean, I certainly had positive thoughts in my intention to deliver messages to our players in a format that they would, you know, receive. I used very poor taste and bad judgment, and I take full responsibility for that.
WILLIAMS: A remorseful Reynolds, now looking for a new job, told KTVU sports reporter Fred Englis (ph) today, he had planned to leave the 49ers soon anyway. He said this is the fifth year he's produced a video, the first one, he says, that crossed the line.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whether it was seen by the outside world or not, I did use bad judgment. There is no getting around that.
WILLIAMS: 49ers owner John York says he was shocked. Quote: "The content of this training material was never cleared by any officer of this organization and is absolutely contradictory to the ideals and values of the San Francisco 49ers."
MIKE NOLAN, 49ERS HEAD COACH: Although I was not a part of the regime, so to speak, before, I would like to say that I do apologize for the events that took place, because I am part of the 49er family at this time.
WILLIAMS: 49er consultant and sports sociologist Harry Edwards said he saw the tape for the first time yesterday.
HARRY EDWARDS, 49ERS CONSULTANT: I think that it probably, to some degree, to the level of stupidity.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You might hurt your teammates. You don't want to do anything that's going to impact the team in a negative way.
WILLIAMS: And the videotape apparently has taught that lesson to players and done its job, just not in the way it was intended.
Rita Williams, KTVU, Channel 2 News.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: Well, while San Francisco stews over who leaked the 49ers video to "The San Francisco Chronicle," the media is stewing over "Vanity Fair's" Deep Throat scoop. How did the magazine get the guy who dropped the dime on President Nixon to actually talk before "The Washington Post," the newspaper that owned the Deep Throat story for more three decades? Well, today's, "New York Times" reports the family of Mark Felt had tried shopping the story with "Vanity Fair," "People" magazine and "Harper Collins Books" to no avail.
Now, in the end, Deep Throat wasn't paid by "Vanity Fair" for going public. But the 91-year-old Felt says now he plans to, quote, "write a book or something and collect all the money I can."
In the meantime, Bob Woodward's publishers at Simon & Schuster may rush the journalist's book about his Deep Throat dealings into print as early as July, next month.
More Deep Throat fallout, though, later today on Judy Woodruff talks with "Washington Post" editor Ben Bradlee. And tonight on "LARRY KING LIVE," a full hour with Woodward and Bernstein, so tune in.
In the meantime, 156 films, 50-something years in the business. Fans of his classic film "Sweet Smell of Success" know him as the boy with the ice cream face. But it's not his face readers of this month's "Vanity Fair" are talking about. On the eve of his 80th birthday, Hollywood legend Tony Curtis here with me to talk live. The interview, straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARILYN MONROE, ACTRESS: Haven't I seen you somewhere before?
TONY CURTIS, ACTOR: Not very likely.
MONROE: You staying at the hotel?
CURTIS: Not at all.
MONROE: Your face is familiar.
CURTIS: Possibly, you've seen it in the newspapers or magazines, "Vanity Fair."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: Whoa, how do you like this? 46 years after uttering that movie line, Tony Curtis is in "Vanity Fair" with a photo spread that proves he still likes it hot. Seriously, young man.
CURTIS: Young man.
LIN: Young, 80 years old, starting tomorrow.
CURTIS: Yes, isn't that neat?
LIN: It is, it's fabulous.
CURTIS: I'm so happy. LIN: And speaking of "Vanity Fair" -- now you're here in town, by the way.
CURTIS: Yes, I am.
LIN: To introduce the film...
CURTIS: I'm here for...
LIN: ... at one of our film festivals.
CURTIS: I'm here for a -- well, for CNN's birthday party, which includes me. And then, tonight we're having a big festivity connected with CNN -- I love CNN. You guys -- if you only knew the spontaneity and the joy of people to be able to watch CNN, the news of it, you know.
LIN: Anywhere around the world.
CURTIS: Anywhere, anywhere. I like it so much for that.
LIN: But enough about us. Let's talk about you. "Vanity Fair." You are, shall we say, buck naked, but for a couple of friends.
CURTIS: But for a couple of dogs.
LIN: Daphne and Josephine, named after the characters in "Some Like It Hot." What possessed you to pose nude for "Vanity Fair."
CURTIS: Well, I spoke with Carla Hayden (ph)...
LIN: Graydon Carter.
CURTIS: Graydon Carter -- I'll get it right -- at "Vanity Fair" and I spoke with him and I said, I'm going to be 80 years old. Why not take me in the nude? He says, you got it.
LIN: And you are nude?
CURTIS: I am nude, except for a couple of dogs.
LIN: Your couple of friends.
CURTIS: You could erase the dogs, but you can't erase me.
LIN: Your wife...
CURTIS: Yes, beautiful girl.
LIN: A young wife indeed.
CURTIS: Yes, she's a lovely woman.
LIN: OK, Tony Curtis, you have a way with women.
CURTIS: I do? LIN: You have been married -- now what?
CURTIS: I've been married five times.
LIN: Five times, OK, because one Web site has you at six.
CURTIS: But that doesn't include the love affairs I've had in life.
LIN: OK, there was something recent on a site about love affairs with a certain kind of film star, shall we say, of adult films.
CURTIS: A pornographic film star?
LIN: Yes.
CURTIS: I did?
LIN: Because there's stuff at you. You're 80 years old. Most people would be sitting in retirement, and yet there are these, you know, Web logs talking about your love life. How do you account for that? There are more than 300,000 on Google when we logged in.
CURTIS: 300,000 hits?
LIN: 300,000 pages on Google when we put your name in.
CURTIS: Yes, isn't that neat?
LIN: What do you think the enduring appeal is?
CURTIS: I'm not quite sure what it is. I'm pleasant and nice to be around, you know. I try to be funny. I try to be a gentleman. I like women very much. My life is women. You know, I found myself always excited by women. You girls bring out the best of me. I want to flirt, I want to be happy, I want you to think of me -- an individual, a man that was a little different than your usual kind of guy.
And that means a lot to me. And that's the whole purpose of the exercise. I got into movies for that. I can't think of any great, grand reason I went ahead and did these things.
LIN: And then you started painting.
CURTIS: Well, I've been painting since I'm a boy. I started painting when I was a kid. I liked it. I lived in New York City. I didn't have -- my parents were immigrants and we lived in the back of a tailor store. My father was a tailor.
LIN: Here's some of the work that we're showing right now.
CURTIS: Oh, wonderful.
LIN: It's kind of Picasso-esque. CURTIS: And the joy I had was being able to draw every day. You know, it took me out of myself. I emptied myself. I wasn't involved in the environment I was in. I wasn't poor. I wasn't rich. I wasn't beat up. I wasn't afraid of anything. And that's what drawing did for me. And aren't I lucky that in my -- this period of my life, I'm open -- you know, when I start to draw, everything disappears in my brain. All I'm interested in is the way the colors fall, the way the objects fall. So it's unique experience. I had no education.
LIN: Right.
CURTIS: The education I've had is watching people to get in the movies and drawing to be a painter.
LIN: And you once said -- here you are, this boy growing up in New York. You admitted that you came to Hollywood with no manners to speak of. And you're sitting at the dinner table with the likes of director David O'Selznick and actress Janet Leigh.
CURTIS: (INAUDIBLE) Cole Porter. I was invited to his house for dinner. And he had glasses, delicate wine glasses (INAUDIBLE). And when you touched them, they would bend, so the oval would become a triangle or whatever it was. And everybody was fascinated by that. And I picked up mine and cracked it. Broke in my hand. I was so embarrassed. These fancy people...
LIN: But you actually said Hollywood hated you.
CURTIS: Well, I was embarrassed. But Ethel Merman, who was at the table, she said, don't worry, kid, it happens to the best of us. And she picked up a glass and broke it. Then Cole Porter broke it. So these -- every now and then, I had a reaching out of people. My -- the people that I grew up with in movies, Cary Grant, Billy Wilder, the director Jack Lemmon...
LIN: So tell me about the moment that, at a dinner party, Kirk Douglas pulls you aside and says, you think you're pretty hot stuff, don't you? And then he called you a few choice names.
CURTIS: Yes.
LIN: One of your co-stars.
CURTIS: I had a pinstriped suit on. And he says -- and he made a gesture like he was going to kick me in the you know what. So I just -- Burt Lancaster sitting next to me. And Burt put his hand on my shoulder like, don't take it serious. Kirk Douglas is like that.
LIN: Was he jealous?
CURTIS: Huh? Oh, very jealous. I don't like blame him.
LIN: So what's next for you?
CURTIS: But he's a good guy. They were all good guys.
LIN: What's next for you, at the age of 80?
CURTIS: Well, I may do another picture. But I'm interested in my painting now. I would like to extend that part of my life, because I've not reached anywhere near what I feel I can reach in painting.
LIN: Artistically. What about as a father? How old is your youngest now?
CURTIS: My youngest child is 47 now. Older than I am.
LIN: I thought you had a young child with your most recent wife, Jill.
CURTIS: Oh, they -- no, that's my grandchildren. I have two or three grandchildren, very young. And I -- I'm like I am with them as I am with you. I don't play any games with them. And they love me. They have a good time with me, you know?
LIN: What do you want to be remembered for?
CURTIS: Being a good guy.
LIN: That's it?
CURTIS: That's it, really. I'm not into -- I do know that a thousand years from now, they'll be sending ships to space. And in it, will be little cassettes of all the movies mankind ever made. And I know I'll be in there somewhere with "Some Like Hot," and "The Defiant Ones," "The Great Race," "Taras Bulba," "Trapeze."
LIN: Sweet is smell of success.
CURTIS: That, to me is the extent of what I feel the human condition can be and is.
LIN: So, in your...
CURTIS: That's where our eternity is. That's where that expression comes from. Until the movies, there was no eternity. Until the movies, there was nothing that would last beyond a week and a half.
LIN: Yes.
CURTIS: Intriguing, isn't it?
LIN: Yes.
CURTIS: And when film started to die -- the actual film -- they invented digital, and everything is on digital now and nothing's going to do in digital.
LIN: Is there anything in your life, looking back now, that you would do differently?
CURTIS: I don't think so. With my education that I've had -- oh, I would imagine now is where I am, what I would have liked to be. I would have liked to be a philosopher, a mathematician. I would have enjoyed being able to use parts of my brain that I haven't had the education to use, you know?
But barring that...
LIN: You've had a good one.
CURTIS: I just want to hang around.
(CROSSTALK)
LIN: And you're doing more than just that.
CURTIS: I'm having a wonderful life.
All the guys and women that I grew up with are all gone now -- all those fabulous actors and actresses that were my friends, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, all of them. And each week someone leaves. It's sad for me. I grew up with them. I was from my -- the time I was 20 until 50.
LIN: You know what, Tony Curtis?
CURTIS: Yes?
LIN: I sit here now and I don't think the audience can fully appreciate how young you really look and how young you really live.
Thanks so much for joining us today.
CURTIS: You're so sweet and I appreciate it.
LIN: Happy birthday.
CURTIS: Thank you.
Bye bye.
LIN: More LIVE FROM in just a moment.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MARKET UPDATE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired June 2, 2005 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Keen-eyed motorheads will instantly recognize this sweet ride as a good condition '75 Ford Escort GL. What would you give me for it? Wait, consider, it was once registered to one Karol Wojtyla, Pope John Paul II. An Illinois man bought it 10 years ago and planned to auction it this weekend, but a family spat over who really owns the erstwhile private pope mobile needs to be resolved first. Check it out.
(STOCK MARKET REPORT)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: In San Francisco, the public relations director for the 49ers earns his 15 minutes of fame, or perhaps more accurately 15 minutes of infamy. It happened when his idea of in-house locker room humor goes public.
Reporter Rita Williams with our San Francisco affiliate KTVU has more on an outrageous fumble and the outrage it caused.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RITA WILLIAMS, CNN AFFILIATE KTVU REPORTER (voice over): This is the videotape causing all of the ruckus. San Francisco 49er public relations director Kirk Reynolds, taking over Gavin Newsom's office as mayor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm here in San Francisco. It's a beautiful, diverse, tremendous city.
WILLIAMS: And then, Reynolds takes a tour of the city, ostensibly to teach 49er players how to deal with the diverse media here; along the way, making off-color jokes about everything from the mayor to gay marriages to the city's Chinese community.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) feels good. He feels good now.
WILLIAMS: And liberally featuring women in various states of undress.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are women in the locker room. There are women in the locker room. So, grab a towel.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's patently offensive. This is a piece of electronic excrement.
WILLIAMS: The team saw the video in August. The mayor saw it yesterday after someone leaked it to "The Chronicle."
MAYOR GAVIN NEWSOM, SAN FRANCISCO: I'm used to the belittling, as they attempted to do in the video. But it wasn't right to do it to the Asian community and to the Chinese community. It was wrong to do it to the gay-lesbian community. It was wrong to exploit women as they were exploited in this video. The video is reprehensible.
WILLIAMS: And the man responsible for making the tape couldn't agree with the mayor more.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The intention certainly was good. I mean, I certainly had positive thoughts in my intention to deliver messages to our players in a format that they would, you know, receive. I used very poor taste and bad judgment, and I take full responsibility for that.
WILLIAMS: A remorseful Reynolds, now looking for a new job, told KTVU sports reporter Fred Englis (ph) today, he had planned to leave the 49ers soon anyway. He said this is the fifth year he's produced a video, the first one, he says, that crossed the line.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whether it was seen by the outside world or not, I did use bad judgment. There is no getting around that.
WILLIAMS: 49ers owner John York says he was shocked. Quote: "The content of this training material was never cleared by any officer of this organization and is absolutely contradictory to the ideals and values of the San Francisco 49ers."
MIKE NOLAN, 49ERS HEAD COACH: Although I was not a part of the regime, so to speak, before, I would like to say that I do apologize for the events that took place, because I am part of the 49er family at this time.
WILLIAMS: 49er consultant and sports sociologist Harry Edwards said he saw the tape for the first time yesterday.
HARRY EDWARDS, 49ERS CONSULTANT: I think that it probably, to some degree, to the level of stupidity.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You might hurt your teammates. You don't want to do anything that's going to impact the team in a negative way.
WILLIAMS: And the videotape apparently has taught that lesson to players and done its job, just not in the way it was intended.
Rita Williams, KTVU, Channel 2 News.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: Well, while San Francisco stews over who leaked the 49ers video to "The San Francisco Chronicle," the media is stewing over "Vanity Fair's" Deep Throat scoop. How did the magazine get the guy who dropped the dime on President Nixon to actually talk before "The Washington Post," the newspaper that owned the Deep Throat story for more three decades? Well, today's, "New York Times" reports the family of Mark Felt had tried shopping the story with "Vanity Fair," "People" magazine and "Harper Collins Books" to no avail.
Now, in the end, Deep Throat wasn't paid by "Vanity Fair" for going public. But the 91-year-old Felt says now he plans to, quote, "write a book or something and collect all the money I can."
In the meantime, Bob Woodward's publishers at Simon & Schuster may rush the journalist's book about his Deep Throat dealings into print as early as July, next month.
More Deep Throat fallout, though, later today on Judy Woodruff talks with "Washington Post" editor Ben Bradlee. And tonight on "LARRY KING LIVE," a full hour with Woodward and Bernstein, so tune in.
In the meantime, 156 films, 50-something years in the business. Fans of his classic film "Sweet Smell of Success" know him as the boy with the ice cream face. But it's not his face readers of this month's "Vanity Fair" are talking about. On the eve of his 80th birthday, Hollywood legend Tony Curtis here with me to talk live. The interview, straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARILYN MONROE, ACTRESS: Haven't I seen you somewhere before?
TONY CURTIS, ACTOR: Not very likely.
MONROE: You staying at the hotel?
CURTIS: Not at all.
MONROE: Your face is familiar.
CURTIS: Possibly, you've seen it in the newspapers or magazines, "Vanity Fair."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: Whoa, how do you like this? 46 years after uttering that movie line, Tony Curtis is in "Vanity Fair" with a photo spread that proves he still likes it hot. Seriously, young man.
CURTIS: Young man.
LIN: Young, 80 years old, starting tomorrow.
CURTIS: Yes, isn't that neat?
LIN: It is, it's fabulous.
CURTIS: I'm so happy. LIN: And speaking of "Vanity Fair" -- now you're here in town, by the way.
CURTIS: Yes, I am.
LIN: To introduce the film...
CURTIS: I'm here for...
LIN: ... at one of our film festivals.
CURTIS: I'm here for a -- well, for CNN's birthday party, which includes me. And then, tonight we're having a big festivity connected with CNN -- I love CNN. You guys -- if you only knew the spontaneity and the joy of people to be able to watch CNN, the news of it, you know.
LIN: Anywhere around the world.
CURTIS: Anywhere, anywhere. I like it so much for that.
LIN: But enough about us. Let's talk about you. "Vanity Fair." You are, shall we say, buck naked, but for a couple of friends.
CURTIS: But for a couple of dogs.
LIN: Daphne and Josephine, named after the characters in "Some Like It Hot." What possessed you to pose nude for "Vanity Fair."
CURTIS: Well, I spoke with Carla Hayden (ph)...
LIN: Graydon Carter.
CURTIS: Graydon Carter -- I'll get it right -- at "Vanity Fair" and I spoke with him and I said, I'm going to be 80 years old. Why not take me in the nude? He says, you got it.
LIN: And you are nude?
CURTIS: I am nude, except for a couple of dogs.
LIN: Your couple of friends.
CURTIS: You could erase the dogs, but you can't erase me.
LIN: Your wife...
CURTIS: Yes, beautiful girl.
LIN: A young wife indeed.
CURTIS: Yes, she's a lovely woman.
LIN: OK, Tony Curtis, you have a way with women.
CURTIS: I do? LIN: You have been married -- now what?
CURTIS: I've been married five times.
LIN: Five times, OK, because one Web site has you at six.
CURTIS: But that doesn't include the love affairs I've had in life.
LIN: OK, there was something recent on a site about love affairs with a certain kind of film star, shall we say, of adult films.
CURTIS: A pornographic film star?
LIN: Yes.
CURTIS: I did?
LIN: Because there's stuff at you. You're 80 years old. Most people would be sitting in retirement, and yet there are these, you know, Web logs talking about your love life. How do you account for that? There are more than 300,000 on Google when we logged in.
CURTIS: 300,000 hits?
LIN: 300,000 pages on Google when we put your name in.
CURTIS: Yes, isn't that neat?
LIN: What do you think the enduring appeal is?
CURTIS: I'm not quite sure what it is. I'm pleasant and nice to be around, you know. I try to be funny. I try to be a gentleman. I like women very much. My life is women. You know, I found myself always excited by women. You girls bring out the best of me. I want to flirt, I want to be happy, I want you to think of me -- an individual, a man that was a little different than your usual kind of guy.
And that means a lot to me. And that's the whole purpose of the exercise. I got into movies for that. I can't think of any great, grand reason I went ahead and did these things.
LIN: And then you started painting.
CURTIS: Well, I've been painting since I'm a boy. I started painting when I was a kid. I liked it. I lived in New York City. I didn't have -- my parents were immigrants and we lived in the back of a tailor store. My father was a tailor.
LIN: Here's some of the work that we're showing right now.
CURTIS: Oh, wonderful.
LIN: It's kind of Picasso-esque. CURTIS: And the joy I had was being able to draw every day. You know, it took me out of myself. I emptied myself. I wasn't involved in the environment I was in. I wasn't poor. I wasn't rich. I wasn't beat up. I wasn't afraid of anything. And that's what drawing did for me. And aren't I lucky that in my -- this period of my life, I'm open -- you know, when I start to draw, everything disappears in my brain. All I'm interested in is the way the colors fall, the way the objects fall. So it's unique experience. I had no education.
LIN: Right.
CURTIS: The education I've had is watching people to get in the movies and drawing to be a painter.
LIN: And you once said -- here you are, this boy growing up in New York. You admitted that you came to Hollywood with no manners to speak of. And you're sitting at the dinner table with the likes of director David O'Selznick and actress Janet Leigh.
CURTIS: (INAUDIBLE) Cole Porter. I was invited to his house for dinner. And he had glasses, delicate wine glasses (INAUDIBLE). And when you touched them, they would bend, so the oval would become a triangle or whatever it was. And everybody was fascinated by that. And I picked up mine and cracked it. Broke in my hand. I was so embarrassed. These fancy people...
LIN: But you actually said Hollywood hated you.
CURTIS: Well, I was embarrassed. But Ethel Merman, who was at the table, she said, don't worry, kid, it happens to the best of us. And she picked up a glass and broke it. Then Cole Porter broke it. So these -- every now and then, I had a reaching out of people. My -- the people that I grew up with in movies, Cary Grant, Billy Wilder, the director Jack Lemmon...
LIN: So tell me about the moment that, at a dinner party, Kirk Douglas pulls you aside and says, you think you're pretty hot stuff, don't you? And then he called you a few choice names.
CURTIS: Yes.
LIN: One of your co-stars.
CURTIS: I had a pinstriped suit on. And he says -- and he made a gesture like he was going to kick me in the you know what. So I just -- Burt Lancaster sitting next to me. And Burt put his hand on my shoulder like, don't take it serious. Kirk Douglas is like that.
LIN: Was he jealous?
CURTIS: Huh? Oh, very jealous. I don't like blame him.
LIN: So what's next for you?
CURTIS: But he's a good guy. They were all good guys.
LIN: What's next for you, at the age of 80?
CURTIS: Well, I may do another picture. But I'm interested in my painting now. I would like to extend that part of my life, because I've not reached anywhere near what I feel I can reach in painting.
LIN: Artistically. What about as a father? How old is your youngest now?
CURTIS: My youngest child is 47 now. Older than I am.
LIN: I thought you had a young child with your most recent wife, Jill.
CURTIS: Oh, they -- no, that's my grandchildren. I have two or three grandchildren, very young. And I -- I'm like I am with them as I am with you. I don't play any games with them. And they love me. They have a good time with me, you know?
LIN: What do you want to be remembered for?
CURTIS: Being a good guy.
LIN: That's it?
CURTIS: That's it, really. I'm not into -- I do know that a thousand years from now, they'll be sending ships to space. And in it, will be little cassettes of all the movies mankind ever made. And I know I'll be in there somewhere with "Some Like Hot," and "The Defiant Ones," "The Great Race," "Taras Bulba," "Trapeze."
LIN: Sweet is smell of success.
CURTIS: That, to me is the extent of what I feel the human condition can be and is.
LIN: So, in your...
CURTIS: That's where our eternity is. That's where that expression comes from. Until the movies, there was no eternity. Until the movies, there was nothing that would last beyond a week and a half.
LIN: Yes.
CURTIS: Intriguing, isn't it?
LIN: Yes.
CURTIS: And when film started to die -- the actual film -- they invented digital, and everything is on digital now and nothing's going to do in digital.
LIN: Is there anything in your life, looking back now, that you would do differently?
CURTIS: I don't think so. With my education that I've had -- oh, I would imagine now is where I am, what I would have liked to be. I would have liked to be a philosopher, a mathematician. I would have enjoyed being able to use parts of my brain that I haven't had the education to use, you know?
But barring that...
LIN: You've had a good one.
CURTIS: I just want to hang around.
(CROSSTALK)
LIN: And you're doing more than just that.
CURTIS: I'm having a wonderful life.
All the guys and women that I grew up with are all gone now -- all those fabulous actors and actresses that were my friends, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, all of them. And each week someone leaves. It's sad for me. I grew up with them. I was from my -- the time I was 20 until 50.
LIN: You know what, Tony Curtis?
CURTIS: Yes?
LIN: I sit here now and I don't think the audience can fully appreciate how young you really look and how young you really live.
Thanks so much for joining us today.
CURTIS: You're so sweet and I appreciate it.
LIN: Happy birthday.
CURTIS: Thank you.
Bye bye.
LIN: More LIVE FROM in just a moment.
We'll be right back.
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