Tony Curtis by Curtis, Tony; Paris, Barry
Tony Curtis (First UK Edition Hardcover Copy)
The Candid, Uncensored Autograph Portrait of a Hollywood Icon—From Street Gangs to Some Like It Hot
The Candid, Uncensored Autograph Portrait of a Hollywood Icon—From Street Gangs to Some Like It Hot
Bibliographic Specifications
- Title: Tony Curtis
- Author: Barry Paris (with Tony Curtis)
- Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd, London
- Publication Date: 1994
- ISBN-10: 0434161847
- ISBN-13: 9780434161843
- Edition Details: First UK Edition, First Printing. Standard hardcover release with original unclipped dust jacket.
- Binding: Original publisher's premium textured cloth-covered boards with crisp gold or silver gilt-stamped typography running down the spine, complete with structurally sound endpapers.
- Physical Format: Octavo (8vo), 320 pages. Wonderfully enhanced with a major collection of previously unpublished film stills, high-gloss production shots, and intimate personal family photographs.
- Language: English
Official Condition Report
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The Book: Very Good (VG)
- Exterior / Cloth Boards: The cloth casing remains in exceptional condition, sitting flat, square, and structurally sound. The corners show only microscopic storage friction along the lower rims, and the spine ends are crisp. The spine itself remains completely unbroken, flat, and undamaged, retaining its original textbook rigidity.
- Interior: The text block is robustly bound, perfectly clean, and tight. The internal pages and extensive photographic inserts are completely clean, crisp, and intact. Entirely free of standard user highlighting, ink underlining, dealer pencil marks, or dog-ears.
- Provenance: An exemplary, well-maintained collectible copy showing no evidence of remainder marks, institutional library stamps, or previous owner nameplates.
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The Dust Jacket: Very Good (VG)
- Condition Details: The original vintage 1994 dust jacket exhibits vibrant graphics and strong paper structural integrity. It shows very limited, superficial signs of handling and slight edge wear along the outer extremities. It features no significant tears, fading, or open chips, and comes protected in a clear, archival Cellophane cover.
Synopsis & Historical Value
Published in 1994, Tony Curtis is a remarkably raw, unvarnished autobiography of one of the most charismatic leading men of Hollywood's Golden Age. Written alongside acclaimed biographer Barry Paris, the narrative tracks the actor's incredible fortunes, beginning with his hardscrabble childhood in a 1930s New York street gang as Bernard Schwartz. The book details his rapid rise to international fame, charting defining cinematic achievements such as his cynical performance in Sweet Smell of Success, his legendary cross-dressing turn in Some Like It Hot, and his gritty dramatic breakthrough in The Boston Strangler.
Curtis breaks his silence on iconic Hollywood history, reflecting on the infamous, heavily censored homoerotic bath scene with Laurence Olivier in Spartacus, his high-profile marriage to Janet Leigh, and his notorious remark that kissing co-star Marilyn Monroe was "like kissing Hitler." Crucially, the memoir offers a deeply candid account of his painful descent into severe alcohol and cocaine addiction during the 1970s and his subsequent rehabilitation. Filled with rare, previously unpublished photographs, this text stands as an invaluable primary document of the psychological cost of studio-era stardom.
Author Profile: Barry Paris
Barry Paris is a highly distinguished American author, journalist, and cultural historian. Educated at Columbia University, he served as a prominent editor for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and became a regular contributor to The New Yorker. Paris is internationally renowned for writing some of the most definitive, critically acclaimed biographies of Hollywood icons, including his landmark works Louise Brooks and Garbo. His biographical style is widely praised by academics for its narrative speed, meticulous archival verification, and exceptional ability to balance glamorous Hollywood legends with deep psychological realism.
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