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American Morning
Tony Curtis Discusses Billy Wilder
Aired March 29, 2002 - 09:24 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.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: It's been funny for a lot of years and it's just as funny now as the day it opened in theaters. Hollywood legend Billy Wilder passed away at the age of 95. Wilder did it all, writer, director, producer. His films had 20 Oscar nominations and one -- more than one award, a lot of them. "Some Like it Hot," which was that clip you were just looking at.
The American Film Institute named it the funniest American movie ever made. It won six of those Oscar nominations. Actor Tony Curtis, a screen legend in his own right, starred in that film alongside Jack Lemmon and with Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis joins us now from Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. Curtis, welcome. It's nice to have you with us.
TONY CURTIS, ACTOR: Howdy.
CAFFERTY: Are you -- you've known Billy Wilder a long time.
CURTIS: A very long time.
CAFFERTY: Did you meet on the set of "Some Like it Hot"? Was that when you first met him?
CURTIS: No, I met him before that. "Some Like it Hot" was 1957, '58. I knew him from the time I got to Hollywood, which about 1950. He was a wonderful friend and a mentor. He made me feel very comfortable at being in the movies.
CAFFERTY: Take us to the set of "Some Like it Hot." It was arguably as good a farce as ever been put on film in this country. It holds up very well today. Tell us a little about making that picture with him if you would.
CURTIS: It was -- we never had a finished script. Billy and Izzy Diamond would write it as we performed it. He'd look at the rushes and see what he liked and then he would be able to embellish what we had shot a little before, which is an unique way to shoot a movie. It was an unique and intriguing experience. It was the first time that two men would have to dress as women in order to avoid getting murdered, which is a pretty good reason for some of us anyway.
CAFFERTY: I absolutely -- I agree.
CURTIS: And working with Marilyn playing the girl part it was an excellent three of us. Marilyn was having some trouble in those days so we had a work a little harder. But by and large, the three of us worked extremely well together. And under the auspices of Billy Wilder, we had fabulous people in the movie.
When I was a kid growing up, I'd see Pat O'Brien and George Raft in movies there I was standing alongside of them working in the movie with them. It was thrilling.
CAFFERTY: "Some Like it Hot" was one kind of film. The "Apartment" was another kind of film. The murder for hire thing that he did with Fred McMurray (ph) was a very dark thing, as was "Sunset Boulevard." What was it about Wilder that allowed his work to stand apart and to hold up over so many years? He was different.
CURTIS: The frailty of the human condition. There isn't one movie that he made that people weren't blown out for some inexplicable reason. Everybody (INAUDIBLE) were all were all bent. There was something wrong with each one of them including my good self in "Some Like it Hot." And he liked that human condition, that frailty. He liked the sadness of people. And he was able to take those things and find some humor in them. "Sunset Boulevard" a good example, a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) a monkey. Not everyday you bury monkeys but he was able to make it worthwhile and important. In "Some Like it Hot." the reason two guys dress up like women, they don't want to get murdered. And they're on the road. There was so many -- and then this one guy, Osgood Fielding III, Joe E. Brown falls in love with the Jack Lemmon character, Daphne. Now everybody knows that Daphne is a guy except Joe E. Brown and he wants to him. And at the end of the movie, when he pulls his wig off he says, I can't, I'm a man. Joe E. Brown says nobody's perfect. So you see it's got a -- it's got a wonderful ending to it, doesn't it?
CAFFERTY: Oh, yeah. On a personal level, do you have a favorite Billy Wilder story?
CURTIS: Yes. Bill Wilder once told me, he said the two things that are important to me, Tony Curtis, was how big my billing and how tight my pants.
CAFFERTY: Well and was he right?
CURTIS: He once said that I had done the (INAUDIBLE). I played the Boston strangler and he said to me one day, he said having Judith Crist (ph) review my movie is like asking the Boston strangler to massage your neck. He had a wonderful way of putting things, didn't he?
CAFFERTY: He had a terribly biting and sarcastic ...
CURTIS: Very much so.
CAFFERTY: ... way about him.
CURTIS: I was always afraid of him. I thought he'd tear my head off one of these days but he never did. He was a very kind and gentle man. CAFFERTY: So you're actually ...
CURTIS: So it was a pleasure to be around him.
CAFFERTY: You're actually involved now in a -- promoting a musical based on "Some Like it Hot."
CURTIS: Yeah. We're doing "Some Like it Hot" and I'll play the Joe E. Brown part. I'll be the eccentric millionaire and we'll be opening in Houston on June 4 and then we're going tour the whole country. Here in Atlanta, Dallas, Washington D.C., everywhere. Nice, huh?
CAFFERTY: What's it like to revisit this property after all of this time?
CURTIS: Well it means a lot to me. There's something eerie about it, you know. I made that movie 42, 43 years ago. I made 122 movies so
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