American Prince: My Autobiography
£3.80
He has appeared in over a hundred films. Elvis copied his looks. The Beatles put him on the cover of Sgt. Pepper. Tony Curtis is without question a Hollywood legend and part of its Golden Age. In American Prince he tells the whole story, from his hard-knock childhood growing up in the Bronx to his wild days as a Hollywood playboy, his destructive drug addiction and his life now as an artist in his eighties. He talks frankly about the people he has known during his long and illustrious career, from the studio owners and directors to his famous friends, such as Jack Lemmon, Cary Grant and James Dean, and the women in his life, including Janet Leigh and Natalie Wood.
Forthright and enthralling, and sparing no detail and no ego, American Prince is the true record of a life lived to the full.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Virgin Digital (30 Mar. 2010) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 4933 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Not Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 382 pages |
| Page numbers source ISBN | 0753520648 |
by Paul Brooks-Burke
Anyone interested in Hollywood in the immediate post war period and into the 60’s will be entertained by Curtis’s autobiography. He seems painfully honest about his feelings and his at times questionable behaviour. There are some memory lapses possibly though. He cites Angela Lansbury as his leading lady in the film Purple Mask; she isnt , it is Colleen Miller, with Lansbury having only half a dozen lines in it and looking thoroughly fed up with the whole thing! Its a light read and quite gossipy too but really none the worse for it, as Curtis is not making grand claims for this book or his intellect.
by Lizziewhite
I love reading autobiographies. This
one was really good. The people he met the films he made and the wives he had. What a life.
by Sizzle
Well TC stands for Tony Curtis but could also be used for Top Cat & either would fit Mr Curtis.
He has had the most incredible life & is one of the few who are still around to tell their tale of life at the height of what pleasuures the free Western way of life could offer.
Just reading it makes you feel tired & also rather envious although he certainly didn’t have an easy life given his background.
It’s a story of grit, wit, pleasure & pain; it’s pretty well written in a very approachable style & would make a great gift for someone who may be a fan but not an avid reader.
Recommended.
by Mancuimum
I have always thought of Tony Curtis as a phenomenal actor of the small and big screen. He always looked at home no matter what he was filming, wether it be a tv show or a film. When I discovered recently he’d written an autobiography in 2008 I bought it. I’d like to say I enjoyed it but I found him arrogant and obnoxious and a bit of a macho pig. It’s well written but he does seem to relish in the fact that he wasn’t very nice in real life. I honestly wish I’d never bought it and just stuck to enjoying his acting.
by CLynn
I always liked Tony Curtis but didn’t know much about him. Now I do. I love his humour and his honesty. He was ‘waiting for the tip’ all of his life, especially as an actor. That reference is from direction in an early film he appeared in when someone is doing their utmost to impress. Well, he does.
He comes across as funny, clever and so down to earth–I like that. He never took himself too seriously, yet he knew what he wanted and went after it. Luck was with him, probably his handsomeness helped, but I think there was something else that came through to those who worked with him and knew him. I think that ‘something’ helped him get ahead, especially in Hollywood where honesty might be a rare commodity. It’s a great read and I think most people will come away feeling as if they know this underrated actor as never before. Loved it.
by Janey
I have to be honest but Tony Curtis was dick happy, if he was a woman he would be a whore, he dipped his wick everywhere and not afraid to say so in his book, he had affairs with numerous celebrity’s while still married to Janet Leigh, its good reading as you’re wondering who’s next. He had a very hard early life at home and with his parents but it is worth reading, you do feel for him at times and can understand why he was the way he was, give it a go and read it I think you will enjoy it all the same.
by Chieftan/Oscar 88
very enjoyable read, reminds me of days gone by, when life in the film industry was so much different than it is now. Don’t get actors like these guys nowadays, full of panache & history, from a time when film stars were indeed film stars. great read
by Robert ‘Bob’ Macespera
The late Clive James includes Tony Curtis in his magnificent book “Cultural amnesia” (2007) among the writers, politicians and historical luminaries on whom he writes. Mr James’ book is excellent, simply a torrent of knowledge and interesting details about the entries. It seems odd, however, that he does include five cimena actors and / or directors: Charlie Chaplin, Federico Fellini, Jean Cocteau, Terry Gillian and Tony Curtis. A strange list indeed.
Mr James does not enters into details or the exact reasons for Mr Curtis’inclusion in an ilustrious list, not any beyond a reference to the actors skills of Mr Curtis and the autobiography that the actor had publish shortly before Cultural amnesia was published: American Prince.
Mr James praises this book and writes that this is a autobiography “above the average”. I beg to disagree.
This is an interesting book, no doubt. Mr Curtis worked in the silver age of Holywood, that one between the 1950s and the 1970s, and obviously he has many tales to tell: his quick ascent to fame, his work with ilustruous directors (Blake Edwards, Billy Wilder, etc), and with fellow actors (Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemon etc.). However, the book suffers for various reasons.
Firstly, there are stories obviously inflated and exagerated. The best living cinema critic (David Thomson) has stated that, against what Tony Curtis says in his book, he (Mr Curtis) did not have a romance with Marilyn Monroe. There’s also a meeting with Paul McCartney with obvious errors in dates and places (the Beatles did not tour Italy in 1966). And in general, we can tell of the effort Mr Curtis makes to name-drop, to set himself above his reach and notch in the Hollywood royalty.
Also, the book’s prose is overall dull, repetitive. It could have done with a deep review by a real writer. It falls for one of the mistakes a biography can make: to become a succession of dates, places and names. And this fact, together with the over-the-top tale that Mr Curtis makes of his feminine conquests, provokes in us a slight rejection
And in the end, the long fall of Mr Curtis in his own demons (and adictions) is dispatched quickly, without regret or even pain – it makes a very sad reading.
In the end we feel that the biography of Tony Curtis is just OK-ish, much less that we expected (and Mr James saw, whatever it was). A biography of a movie legend always leaves us, at the very least, with a handful of precious details, a few unforgetable anecdotes, a description of an era and the people that populated it. We do not get it here.
It is mildly interesting, and little else.
Tony Curtis will always be remembered for his Joe / Josephine role in “Some like it hot”, and deservedly so. That’s a master class in acting of which we never grow tired. He could have been a bigger star, but didn’t, even if, for what he writes here, he thinks he did.