At 17, I dreamed of seeing the world. At 19, I had been around the world and back.
Before I was in the Navy I knew I wanted to be an actor, and I was able to study drama and get into the movies.
But my longevity is due to my good timing.
But where there is no art show, I would still be painting.
Even on a personal note, my dressing table downstairs is crowded with things, like a mini landscape. It's a city with buildings and towers and roads. There's a pool and a little park. When I move something around it becomes a different tableau.
Every movie I've been in has ended up on television.
Everywhere I go in the world, people know me and recognise me and really show affection for me.
For instance, I always have one hanging in Budapest in the mayors office.
I also know that a lot of young people attend the Jules Verne Festival and I am grateful because they keep me young!
I can't sit around and wait for the telephone to ring.
I don't know what organically grown chickens are; I've never seen one.
I enjoy being recognized whatever environment I'm in.
I enlisted when I was a boy. The Navy looked after me like my mother. It fed me, took care of me and gave me wonderful opportunities.
I joined the Navy hoping to be submariner and ended up in the sub service aboard a tender in the Pacific.
I like Vegas for its spontaneity.
I look at everything in an artistic way.
I used to be good friends with my depression, saying oh I'm so depressed, or life is terrible.
I want the public to know that it will be an honor for me to meet them and spend a few special moments with all those who helped me through my filmed career.
I was born in and worked in a period that could be called enviable.
I will always remember this summer day in Paris, when I was to perform a great acrobatic move. I can still see myself stepping on the ring of a packed circus along real performers.
I wouldn't be caught dead marrying a woman old enough to be my wife.
I'm world famous, everywhere I go there are people who love me because of I've been able to bring them some joy from the movies I've made.
I've been in the movies for 50 years, I've made 130 some-odd movies.
I've just opened a show in Florida, although I also have many pieces on display around the world.
I've made 122 movies, and I daresay there's a picture of mine showing somewhere in the world every day.
I've never hung any of my paintings there, although I like them on the floor - it's so artistic.
If you know how to live in Vegas you can have the best time.
It is for the latter that I always wanted to be an actor: to play characters who are always on the move.
It's such a human condition, whether you're a great track star or a great knitting person or you paint watercolors - someone knows who you are.
Its not age as much as the experiences I have had.
Like an opera singer, I am able to sing out my song in paint.
My whole world before I joined the Navy was my neighborhood in the Bronx.
Now I'm a painter. That was another opportunity I was able to pursue, I've been painting all my life, now it's become a second career because of my success in the movies.
Painting is much more than therapy to me its a way of life.
So all of these pictures, when I see them now, I see another level that I didn't notice when I made them. That makes them very appealing to me.
The government gave me enough money to go to acting school.
The movie business is very twisted, out of site, out of mind, you know.
The Navy opened doors for me that would not have been possible any other way, and for that I am forever grateful.
The service meant so much to me. You don't know privileged I feel and how lucky I am to have served.
They gave me away as a prize once - a Win Tony Curtis For A Weekend competition. The woman who won was disappointed. She'd hoped for second prize - a new stove.
We often don't think of them, we think of the great wars and the great battles, but what about losing a son or a daughter, or a girl losing her husband or vice versa? I think of the people who never got the chance to have the opportunities I had.
Well, one is to get rid of any negative attitudes and vibrations that get to me.
While you're doing it, you don't really know what you're doing.
Years ago when I first started making movies, the studio would send me out on tour.
Yes I'm still working, but my life's no longer filled with it.
Tony Curtis served in the Navy during World War II and, upon his release, used the GI educational program to study drama.
Tony Curtis recieved a lifetime achievement award from the Italian Oscars in May of 1996 and in Spain in 2001.
On 4 June 1951, Tony Curtis married his first wife, Janet Leigh.
On 20 April 1968, Tony Curtis married wife number three, Leslie Allen.
On 28 February 1993, Tony Curtis married wife number five, Lisa Deutsch.
Tony Curtis underwent heart bypass surgery in April 1994.
Tony Curtis stands only 5'9".
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