Jamie Lee Curtis paid tribute to her late father Tony Curtis on Instagram this week, sharing the only known photograph of him with his surviving children. The post touched on a lifetime of family time that was hard to come by – and on the very recent loss of her sister Kelly Curtis.
Tony Curtis was a Hollywood legend. He appeared in dozens of films over five decades. His best-known roles include “Some Like It Hot,” “Spartacus,” and “The Defiant Ones.” Off screen, his personal life was complicated. He had several marriages and children by different women. Those children were raised by their own mothers, spread across different cities and countries. Getting everyone in one room was not easy.
Jamie Lee described it in her Instagram post. “The Tony Curtis family of children was rarely in one place, one picture at the same time,” she wrote. “We were all raised by our mothers in different cities and countries.”
The first time Tony’s children were all together was at Jamie Lee’s wedding. She made it her personal request from her father – a wedding gift of sorts. “That was my wedding gift from Tony,” she wrote, “my request that we all be in one room at the same time.”
After that, the family came together at Tony’s fourth wedding. Then twice more under harder circumstances – at the funeral of her brother Nicholas, and then at Tony’s own funeral.
The photograph in the post came from a family trip to Mexico. Nicholas had already passed by that point. Tony and his wife stayed in a separate house. The kids and grandchildren shared another. But there was a joint swim and a dinner, and someone got a photo. “This is the only picture of Tony and his surviving children,” Curtis wrote. “He was delighted to be surrounded by us and we him.”
She described her father with real warmth. “He was a magnetic force of humor, heart and hubris,” she wrote, adding that he was “a fantastic actor and talented artist.”
Tony Curtis died in September 2010 at age 85. Nicholas Curtis, Jamie Lee’s brother, passed away in 1994.
The post also acknowledged the messiness that can come with a blended, far-flung family. “Siblings vying for attention from the patriarch is often fraught,” Curtis wrote, “but at the end of the day we are family and miss him, Nicholas and now, Kelly, together.”
That mention of Kelly signals the most current loss. Kelly Curtis, Jamie Lee’s sister and also Tony and Janet Leigh’s daughter, appears to have passed away close to the time of this post. Curtis gave no details. The grief is clearly fresh.
Curtis is 67. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2023 for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” She’s talked openly about her father and family history in interviews over the years. This post fits that pattern – direct, personal, and without drama.
She ended it simply: “He is missed this day.”
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