Tony Curtis and Max Moulding join forces as the screen legend celebrates his 80th in Las Vegas.

By Ken Hall

Screen legend Tony Curtis has been creating art nearly all his life, and later this month - when the actor turns 80 - many of his artistic works will be on display in Las Vegas (where Curtis now resides) as part of a huge birthday celebration.

Arnold Schwarzenegger will be there. So will Kirk Douglas, Jamie Lee Curtis (Tony's daughter from his marriage to Janet Leigh), and a host of other celebrities. The party will be held June 24-26 in the magnificent new 1920s-style ballroom of the MGM Grand Hotel. The hotel is owned by Kirk Kerkorian, a longtime friend of Curtis' and a major player in the Las Vegas hotel and casino scene.

The party will be part birthday celebration, part benefit event. All 80+ works of art - sketches, still-life paintings, boxed collages, hand-painted sculptures and painted vases, all produced over the course of Curtis' prolific lifetime - will be offered for sale, with the proceeds going to help the Shiloh Horse Rescue and Sanctuary, an organization started by Curtis' wife, Jill Vanden Berg, to help abused, neglected, injured and unwanted horses. About 50 horses live at the ranch, located just outside Las Vegas.

Every piece of art for sale has been framed with moulding from Max Moulding, based in Carson, Calif. Max Moulding was selected by Dr. William D. Mett, Mr. Curtis' close friend and art representative, who was impressed by the firm and its employees while walking the West Coast Art & Frame Show earlier this year in Las Vegas.

"I was with Harold Weber, a Max Moulding customer who told me about them," Dr. Mett said. "When I went into their booth, I was immediately impressed with their product line, as well as the nice and professional people" (he's referring to Allen Fang, president of Max Moulding; Audrey Liao, vice president of marketing; David Ganguet, western regional sales manager; and Joanne Garcia, a sales rep for Las Vegas and southern California).

Dr. Mett sent Curtis some samples he was given at the show - about 150 in all. "Tony was so impressed, he called numerous friends and associates, telling them how pleased he was with the Max Moulding line," Dr. Mett said. "Tony is very hands-on that way. He was very much involved in the decision-making process."

The framing is being provided by Daniels West in Las Vegas, which - along with Curtis - decided which Max Moulding products were best suited for which works of art. The works themselves had to be transported to Daniels West by truck, as some are quite large, up to 50" x 72". And his boxed collages are delicate assemblages, requiring special handling and packaging.

Curtis has been making the boxed collages - incongruous, everyday objects that he finds and displays alongside one another surrealistically in a boxed environment - as well as his acrylic works on canvas and pen-and-ink sketches, since before his acting career took off in the early 1950s. He considered a career as an artist before acting swept him away, like the tide, into more than 150 film roles.

Tony Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz, the son of a tailor, in the Bronx, New York. He remembers drawing common objects as a boy - a set of keys, a glass, a bowl, a book. "I always had a desire to paint and draw," he said. "I never did well in academics, but I liked to capture images in front of me. The pencil, and later the brush, told me what I wanted to say and do."

Curtis dropped out after elementary school, having only completed the sixth grade. But he continued to take art classes around Manhattan, wherever they were offered, and draw and paint on his own. "I'd go down to Third Avenue and Second Avenue and draw the "L" trains, with their beautiful steel rails," he said. "I've always liked to capture things up close. There's an infinity to what I do."

Over time, he became a fan of the Impressionists, like Pissarro, Matisse and Masson. His work, in fact, has been compared favorably to those old Impressionist masters. At one of his gallery showings in California, a writer for the Los Angeles Times said of his work, "His canvases are startling, Van Gogh-like still lifes, thick with colors and thundering contrasts."

Of Pissarro, Curtis said, "He, for me, breaks down the image and gives it another dimension, evokes what that painting truly represents. The objects in his works aren't used as props. They are there for a very real purpose. And his choice of colors is magnificent."

Collecting common objects and boxing them, side by side, is something Curtis has been doing practically all his life. One box may start with something he found while walking down the street - a marble, or a golf ball. That might be joined later by a torn piece of a letter someone sent him forty years ago. To that he may add rosary beads and a shot glass. "Sometimes it takes years for just the right item to come along to complete a box," Curtis said. "It's hard for me to articulate how they all fit and live side by side. They just do."

While his paintings are mostly still lifes and portraits (he did one of Jamie Lee, in 1972), the collages are a nod to the Surrealists, whom he also admires. One in particular, the American artist Joseph Cornell, also liked putting unrelated items in boxes, just like Tony. "I had been doing my boxes for years before I saw his work," Curtis said. "But seeing an artist of his talent and caliber doing the same thing kind of validated my own efforts."

Curtis said he chose the name Tony Curtis because, as a boy, he would get bullied and picked on for being Jewish. "With that name - Bernie Schwartz - people knew right away I was Jewish. And it was just the climate of the times, with the Nazis doing what they were doing, that anti-Semitism was rampant." He decided to change his name even before he got into acting.

Curtis had read a book titled "Anthony Adverse," about a boy born of adversity, and he liked it so much he almost took that as his stage name. "But somebody told me he was sure another actor was using it," Curtis said with a laugh. "It turned out he was thinking of the book." He kept the Anthony anyway, which became Tony, and chose Curtis as a last name because he always liked the sound of it.

Tony Curtis with Allen Fang (right), president of Max Moulding, and Audrey Liao,
vice president of sales and marketing for the firm.

"Marilyn's Bouquet", 40"x30". Moulding by Max Moulding. Framing by Daniels West.

"Tropical Passion", 30"x40". Moulding by Max Moulding. Framing by Daniels West.

"Mother and Child", 36"x24". Moulding by Max Moulding. Framing by Daniels West.

"Contemplation", 36"x48". Moulding by Max Moulding. Framing by Daniels West.