The time I met Tony Curtis

It was a “premiere” (if you can call it that) in a downtown movie house called The Vogue in Vancouver BC. The film was called “Johnny Stool Pigeon” which I’m sure you’ve never heard of (Curtis made 185 films!). This was 1949 and the only reason I was there was to gawk at the real star of the film, Dan Duryea (you’ve probably never heard of him either), but he had been the tank driver in the 1943 war movie “Sahara”, one of my favorite wartime films (along with “Desperate Journey”. Without checking with Stephen Hawking my definition of a star is a physical phenomena that attracts people like me. I begged my parents to take me to Tommy Dorsey’s Casino Gardens in LA so I could meet Danny Kaye. I once passed Marilyn Maxwell on Hollywood Boulevard and ran around the block so I could pass her again. As time went on, the stars moved more and more out of sight, or were only seen from behind the barriers. I did see Rock Hudson once in 1953 in a very informal setting at a showing of “Kiss Me Kate”. He was in the lobby tossing popcorn kernels to a young man. The old Hollywood was the best Hollywood and Tony Curtis exemplified it. He would show up at the Bellagio in Vegas very often and meet and greet people on the casino floor. He was a real star then, now and forever.