MUNN, MICHAEL — Tony Curtis: Nobody\S Perfect

UK, JR Books. 2011. Hardcover with dust jacket, 24.5cm. Book, 312pp & 800g, photo section amidships. This biography by Michael Munn, who met Curtis several times and interviewed him at length, tells the definitive story of the one of the last matinee idols from the Golden Age of Hollywood, a heart-throb who, when asked what he wanted on his epitaph, replied, fittingly, 'Nobody's perfect.' Born into a poor Hungarian family living in the Bronx, all Tony Curtis ever wanted to be was a movie star. As a young boy he lived in fear of anti-semitic beatings and abuse, but the child who began life as Bernard Schwartz went on to conquer Hollywood and live his dream. By the time he died, he was a legend with more than a hundred and twenty movies and TV dramas to his name. Here is the full story of a man plucked from obscurity to become the ultimate movie star; someone who skyrocketed to success via the Studio System. Nobody's perfect covers his inauspicious start - struggling during the Depression then serving on a wartime submarine and witnessing the Japanese surrender at Tokyo Bay. The book goes on to describe Curtis's days as one of the top movie stars of the 1950s and 60s, his five marriages and life-or-death struggle with drugs and alcohol. While his professional life was at its peak, his private life was beginning to fall apart. By the mid-1950s he was seeing a psychiatrist three times a week and soon succumbed to the lure of drugs. Munn's book lets you get up close & personal with Tony. Excellent/Excellent.