I recently watched Trapeze on TCM (really the only place on TV to watch movies – proper aspect ratio, no commercials or editing — but I digress.). I started watching for Burt Lancaster, but as it went on, I enjoyed Tony Curtis’ performance more and more. He was vital, cocky, vulnerable and cool, and he threw himself into the role — literally — alongside Lancaster, a man who came out of the circus and had actual trapeze experience. It made me appreciate Curtis, and it looks like that appreciation came not a moment too soon, because he died yesterday.

Here’s the article at the IMDB.

And here’s his obituary from The Globe and Mail.

He never won an Oscar, but I would have given him one for my favourite of his films, The Sweet Smell of Success. How about you? What movie would you have given Tony an Academy Award for?

Trapeze (1956)

Spartacus (1960)

Some Like it Hot (1959)

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

The cats’s in a bag, Sidney. And the bag’s in a river.

Cut.