With his pompadour haircut and knowing blue eyes, Tony Curtis cut a charming, good-humoured figure in Hollywood for more than half a century.
He emerged as a likeable survivor of the star system, who lived by his own ethos that “it’s supposed to be fun”.
Born in Manhattan to an immigrant Jewish tailor from Hungary, young Bernard Schwarz lived behind his father’s shop on the East Side, before moving to the Bronx.
Speaking Hungarian at home, he was a young tearaway who lived by his wits and fast feet, often in street gangs
