Byline: WENDY LEIGH

HIGH noon in Las Vegas, and Tony Curtis - dressed in white shorts and a black shirt - is lounging by his hillside pool overlooking the Nevada desert, while his maid is inside his mansion preparing lunch.

At 81 years old, he has no qualms whatsoever about describing himself as an extremely lucky man.

For although he is the last living Hollywood male icon of his generation - the Oscar-nominated star of 171 films, including classics like Some Like It Hot, The Boston Strangler and Sweet Smell Of Success - Tony Curtis was born Bernie Schwartz in the Bronx in 1925, with a harsh upbringing and a chip on both shoulders.

It was a start in life which has shaped and driven him to a multimillion-dollar fortune, six marriages and a huge desire for success.

'My father was a tailor who'd left Hungary to find a new life in America,' he says, 'Life there turned out really tough for him. We lived in the back of the tailor's shop, my parents slept in one corner, my brothers Julius and Robert and I in the other. There was a toilet in the third corner. And in the fourth, my mother did the cooking. That was our home.

'My mother was a very difficult mother.

When I was a child, she beat me up, and was very aggressive, antagonistic.' In fact, his mother, Helen, was later diagnosed with schizophrenia, a mental illness which also afflicted his brother, Robert, and led to him being institutionalised. But there was further tragedy.

'When I was eight, myself and my little brother, Julius were put in an orphanage for a month because our parents couldn't afford to feed us.

'A little bit after that, when I was 13, Julius got hit by a truck and I had to identify his dead body. I've kept his cap and school books nearly 70 years because that's all I had left of him.' With one brother dead and another mentally ill, Tony fled the harsh reality of his upbringing by escaping to the cinema.

'When I was a child, I used to go to the movies and became enthralled by all the fencing, horseback riding, kissing the girls. I said to myself, "why can't I do that?"

SO AFTER a spell in the navy in 1943, I studied acting along with Elaine Stritch, Walter Matthau and Rod Steiger. Then - because I was the handsomest of boys - I got into the movies.' He arrived in Hollywood in 1949, aged 23, and was under contract to Universal Pictures, where his name was changed from Bernie Schwartz to Tony Curtis. The studio groomed him for stardom by sending him to fencing and riding lessons, but Tony admits that he was interested only in girls and money.

And it was hardly surprising that when the boy from the Bronx, who'd spent time in an orphanage, met a 20-year- old blonde orphan from California named Marilyn Monroe, that they would instantly become friends - and more.

'Apart from my wife, Jill, Marilyn was the great love of my life,' he declares, adamantly adding: 'Forget about that quote, "Kissing Marilyn was like kissing Hitler" I never said it. The studio made it up after we made Some Like It Hot together.

'They did it to punish Marilyn because she was so much trouble. When we met, she was trying to get a contract at Universal, she was 20 and we gravitated to each other. We had an affair for a couple of months. We were very close.

But I knew that as soon as she got started in movies and I was getting started in movies that our careers would take over. There was nothing permanent about it.

'Marilyn was great in bed. It was single-minded sex for us. It was a rush of sex. It wasn't educated sex. When we knew each other, I hadn't had a lot of sexual experience.

'Marilyn was very ambitious but no more ambitious than I was. We both understood that. I was prepared for her to fly the coop and I was prepared to fly out myself. I was waiting for a job that would take me away and it did and it took away the electricity of the relationship. I calmed down and so did Marilyn, but we had a wonderful time together.

'When I first met Marilyn, she had been rather happy and not at all oppressed, but by the time we made Some Like It Hot, she was pretty tough.

'One day, she and I were being measured by the designer for our Some Like It Hot costumes. I was in my shorts and Marilyn was wearing panties and a silk blouse.

'When the designer measured Marilyn he said: "You know, Tony has a better-looking rear end than you do." Marilyn opened her blouse and said: "Yeah, but he doesn't have these!"

'Marilyn wasn't a very smart person. I understood what she was. This relationship she had with the Kennedys was not as intense as we all imagine.

She would have relationships with anyone that she felt could give her something.

'She didn't pal about with a lot of people until she wanted to get into the movies. Then she carried knee pads with her in her handbag - she always picked her targets. There was no natural love relationships with her in those days. But when I knew her, there was. It wasn't because of me, but because of her age.' After his relationship with Marilyn fell apart, Tony became captivated by another Hollywood blonde, Janet Leigh, whom he married in 1951.

Later she made her reputation as the star of Hitchcock's Psycho.

'For a while, we were Hollywood's-golden couple. I was very dedicated and devoted to Janet but then she was unfaithful to me.

'I was on the top of my trade but in her eyes that goldenness had started to wear off. I realised that whatever I was, I wasn't enough for Janet. That hurt me a lot, and it broke my heart.' They had two daughters, the eldest of whom is Jamie Lee Curtis, star of A Fish Called Wanda and wife of British peer, Christopher Haden-Guest.

('I don't care about his title. It doesn't make any difference to me,' says Tony.) Ten years into their marriage, Tony and Janet divorced.

THOUGH he won't admit it, it's clear that Tony's own heart has been broken by Hollywood's failure to grant him the ultimate accolade of an Oscar.

'I've never felt that my profession has ever recognised me for my work,' he says.

Earlier this year, however, Tony did win Empire Magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award, and flew to London to accept it.

Tony Curtis misses the glory days of Hollywood and events have not always been easy for him. Apart from the tragedy in his early life, he lost his son by his third wife, model Leslie Allen.

'He died of a drug overdose when he was 23. As a father, you don't recover from that. There isn't a moment at night that I don't remember him.' Tony's great passion now is no longer the movies but his art.

'I still make movies, but I'm not that interested any more. I paint all the time and next year, my painting The Red Table will be on display in the Metropolitan Museum in Manhattan.' His work can command more than [pounds sterling]25,000 a canvas.

And he is now on his sixth marriage, this time to Jill Vandenberg who is 42 years his junior. They met in a restaurant 12 years ago and married five years later.

'The age gap doesn't bother us.

We laugh a lot. My body is functioning and everything is good.

She is the sexiest woman I've ever known. We don't think about time.

I don't use Viagra either. There are 50 ways to please your lover.' * Tony Curtis Fine Art; www.tonycurtis.com or call 001 702 736 1787.

COPYRIGHT 2006 Solo Syndication Limited

This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.

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