"It is for the latter that I always wanted to be an actor: to play characters who are always on the move." -- Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis (born 1946) is an Anglo-Welsh poet.
Curtis was born in Carmarthen and educated at the University of Wales, Swansea. He subsequently studied for the MFA degree at Goddard College, Vermont, becoming the only British writer ever to graduate from that course.
His debut in print was Three Young Anglo-Welsh Poets (1974), in which he featured together with Duncan Bush and Nigel Jenkins. He was given a Gregory Award in 1972. He was winner of the National Poetry Competition in 1984 and the Dylan Thomas Award in 1993. In 1994 he became Professor of Poetry at the University of Glamorgan. In 1997 he received a Cholmondeley Award. He founded Creative Writing as a subject at the university and developed the Masters course there which he ran for sixteen years:the M.Phil. in Writing. He was awarded the first D.Litt. by the University of Glamorgan in 2004. In 2001 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
"At 17, I dreamed of seeing the world. At 19, I had been around the world and back.""But my longevity is due to my good timing.""But where there is no art show, I would still be painting.""Even on a personal note, my dressing table downstairs is crowded with things, like a mini landscape. It's a city with buildings and towers and roads. There's a pool and a little park. When I move something around it becomes a different tableau.""Every movie I've been in has ended up on television.""Everywhere I go in the world, people know me and recognise me and really show affection for me.""For instance, I always have one hanging in Budapest in the mayors office.""I can't sit around and wait for the telephone to ring.""I don't know what organically grown chickens are; I've never seen one.""I enjoy being recognized whatever environment I'm in.""I enlisted when I was a boy. The Navy looked after me like my mother. It fed me, took care of me and gave me wonderful opportunities.""I joined the Navy hoping to be submariner and ended up in the sub service aboard a tender in the Pacific.""I like Vegas for its spontaneity.""I look at everything in an artistic way.""I used to be good friends with my depression, saying oh I'm so depressed, or life is terrible.""I want the public to know that it will be an honor for me to meet them and spend a few special moments with all those who helped me through my filmed career.""I was born in and worked in a period that could be called enviable.""I will always remember this summer day in Paris, when I was to perform a great acrobatic move. I can still see myself stepping on the ring of a packed circus along real performers.""I wouldn't be caught dead marrying a woman old enough to be my wife.""I'm world famous, everywhere I go there are people who love me because of I've been able to bring them some joy from the movies I've made.""I've been in the movies for 50 years, I've made 130 some-odd movies.""I've just opened a show in Florida, although I also have many pieces on display around the world.""I've made 122 movies, and I daresay there's a picture of mine showing somewhere in the world every day.""If you know how to live in Vegas you can have the best time.""It's such a human condition, whether you're a great track star or a great knitting person or you paint watercolors - someone knows who you are.""Its not age as much as the experiences I have had.""Like an opera singer, I am able to sing out my song in paint.""My whole world before I joined the Navy was my neighborhood in the Bronx.""Now I'm a painter. That was another opportunity I was able to pursue, I've been painting all my life, now it's become a second career because of my success in the movies.""Painting is much more than therapy to me its a way of life.""The government gave me enough money to go to acting school.""The movie business is very twisted, out of site, out of mind, you know.""The service meant so much to me. You don't know privileged I feel and how lucky I am to have served.""They gave me away as a prize once - a Win Tony Curtis For A Weekend competition. The woman who won was disappointed. She'd hoped for second prize - a new stove.""We often don't think of them, we think of the great wars and the great battles, but what about losing a son or a daughter, or a girl losing her husband or vice versa? I think of the people who never got the chance to have the opportunities I had.""While you're doing it, you don't really know what you're doing.""Yes I'm still working, but my life's no longer filled with it."