Tony Curtis – star of the films The Defiant Ones, Some Like It Hot, and The Great Race, among others – died of cardiac arrest yesterday at his home in Las Vegas, He was 85.
Today, TCM, where Curtis had become something of a regular presence – joking that TCM stood for “Tony Curtis Movies” – has announced a tribute to the legendary Hollywood leading man with twelve of his best known films airing on Sunday, October 10th.
Details from the press release [including Sunday’s schedule] follow the jump.
Turner Classic Movies to Pay Tribute to Legendary Actor Tony Curtis Sunday, Oct. 10
Turner Classic Movies (TCM)
will feature the great work of legendary actor Tony Curtis on Sunday, Oct. 10, with a 24-hour marathon of 12 films. Curtis, who died Wednesday at age 85, was a longtime friend of TCM. He appeared on the network many times and was an enthusiastic participant earlier this year in the network’s first-ever TCM Classic Film Festival.
In 1999, Curtis was interviewed by TCM host Robert Osborne for an intimate conversation about the actor’s career. That conversation, which was part of TCM’s Private Screenings series, will be available as an audio podcast beginning tomorrow at http://tcm.com/podcast/. The network’s on-air tribute to Curtis will feature such films as Operation Petticoat (1959), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), Sex and the Single Girl (1964), The Great Race (1965) and his Oscar®-nominated performance in The Defiant Ones (1958).
“Tony Curtis has been one of TCM’s most supportive and best friends from the time he joined us for Private Screenings to his participation in our TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood this past April,” Osborne said. “We’ll miss him terribly as an actor, as a buoyant personality and especially as a close pal who made the world seem a much friendlier, more optimistic place to be.”
Tom Brown, TCM’s vice president of original productions, worked with Curtis on numerous occasions. “It was a great privilege to know Tony both professionally and personally,” Brown said. “Through his many contributions to the network, he became a beloved member of the TCM family. He always treated everyone at the network like a friend and had a great sense of humor. Tony once joked that TCM stands for Tony Curtis Movies. Today, we feel like it really does.”
The following is a complete schedule for TCM’s Sunday, Oct. 10, tribute to Curtis (all times shown are Eastern):
6 a.m. Beachhead (1954) – with Frank Lovejoy and Mary Murphy
7:45 a.m. Kings Go Forth (1958) – with Frank Sinatra and Natalie Wood
9:45 a.m. The Vikings (1958) – with Kirk Douglas, Ernest Borgnine and Janet Leigh
11:45 a.m. Operation Petticoat (1959) – with Cary Grant and Dina Merrill
2 p.m. Who Was That Lady? (1960) – with Janet Leigh and Dean Martin
4:15 p.m. Sex and the Single Girl (1964) – with Natalie Wood, Lauren Bacall and Henry Fonda
6:15 p.m. You Can’t Win ‘Em All (1970) – with Charles Bronson and Michèle Mercier
8 p.m. Sweet Smell of Success (1957) – with Burt Lancaster and Martin Milner
9:45 p.m. The Defiant Ones (1958) – with Sidney Poitier and Theodore Bikel
11:30 p.m. Trapeze (1956) – with Burt Lancaster and Gina Lollobrigida
1:30 a.m. The Great Race (1965) – with Jack Lemmon and Natalie Wood
4:15 a.m. Don’t Make Waves (1967) –with Claudia Cardinale and Sharon Tate