[Unoloknovagog]

Pretty sure that ^^^ isn't Tony Curtis (below left) but John Gavin (below right) with Laughton in SPARTACUS ...

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Another look ...

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But back to Tony ...

Tasty Tony

http://www.outsmartmagazine.com/issu...tonycurtis.php

by Blase DiStefano


In the bathing scene from the 1960 film Spartacus, the Roman senator Crassius (Laurence Olivier) is discussing with his young slave Antoninus (Tony Curtis) how to treat women, when he starts talking about food:Crassius: Do you eat oysters?Antoninus: Yes.Snails? No.Do you consider the eating of oysters to be moral and the eating of snails to be immoral?No, master.Of course not. It’s all a matter of taste, isn’t it?Yes, master.And taste is not the same as appetite and therefore not a question of morals, is it?It could be argured so, master.Um, that’ll do. My robe, Antoninus. Ah, my taste … includes both oysters and snails.This exchange about Crassius’s taste for women and men was cut from the film (although it was restored in the 1991 rerelease). In the documentary The Celluloid Closet, Tony Curtis says that Antoninus "realizes he’s going to be asked to do something that he’s not prepared to do. I like Antoninus for that, you know? Take me out to dinner first, give me a little good time. Don’t throw me in the tub and drop the soap."

OutSmart talked to Curtis by phone while he was in Las Vegas taking singing and dancing lessons for the new musical Some Like It Hot ... To get the full flavor of the interview, try to hear his New York Jewish accent in your head while you’re reading ...

... Speaking of men and men … well, first, how old were you when you got to Hollywood?

I was 22. That was 1948.

And as beautiful as you were … I mean, you are still good-looking…

Thank you.

But as beautiful as you were, I’m assuming that you…

I had more action than Mount Vesuvius.

So, both men and women put the make on you.

Men, women, children. Animals!

I can’t wait for the headlines–"TONY CURTIS INTO BESTIALITY."

[Laughs] I loved it, too. I loved the affection of everybody around me. I participated where I wanted to, and I didn’t where I didn’t. It wasn’t like I said, "Well, I won’t do this or I won’t do that." I just had a chance to have great wonderful friends of all ethnic backgrounds, all sexual genders, and that’s the joy of being an American, that’s the joy of being alive, where all of your friends can be who-ever they want to be.

Apparently, you were pretty open about it.

I’ve always been open about it. I couldn’t be any other way. I’ve never allowed that to inflict me, and I don’t even like movies that have homosexuality and heterosexuality as a theme. I don’t feel it’s necessary. You tell the story as the story is. You don’t have to inflict on it your opinions. You see, I don’t like to use the word "gay," because gay is a word in the dictionary that means happy and thoughtful, and I think we’re using that word out of context, although it represents what we feel like. But still I don’t like to use that word in describing all of us. I want to be very straight and honest with everybody. You know, I don’t see any reason why not. Aren’t we allowed to have privilege of choice? If you don’t offend or hurt anybody, you should have that privilege; we are in America, we are Americans and are allowed that privilege, or we should.

But the problem is the laws.

Yes, absolutely. And the ethnic vibrations of all that. We have to come to grips with that. We have to come to grips with many, many things. But that’s all right, we must carry on, arm in arm, walk down that street, and not be ashamed of anything. Bet you didn’t think you’d get all this on Monday morning, did you?

Well, sure, why not.

Why not, dear.

I’m open.

Any time of the day, sweetie. Oh, dear.

So, do you eat oysters?

I do. Oysters and snails.

And snails?

I’m not prejudiced in any way. That was a fabulous scene in that movie.

It was cut, wasn’t it?

When the movie came out, that scene was not in. It showed me with Larry Olivier and he’s asking me what I did, and that was the end of it, and the next thing you see me escaping.

And that scene was key to the project. They photographed it, but they never did closeups of it and they never processed the sound. Universal Pictures in their own way was trying to critique the movie; they didn’t want that to be spoken. So, they said they lost the sound. But they didn’t lose the sound. And just after making the movie, Larry Olivier and I realized that’s that what they were trying to do. So we insisted they shoot the scene, but they never recorded it.

And then years later, they had the scene, but they had no soundtrack. So what they did, they went to Anthony Hopkins and asked him to do Olivier, and they asked me to do Antoninus, and that’s where we got the dialogue in that scene. Isn’t that intriguing?

Is it ever.

It just shows you how studios, the fear they had in mentioning anything like that. They didn’t want to touch the scene as the picture was being made, but as it was finished, they thought they could do anything they wanted. Well, they couldn’t get away with it.

So the scene was key to why Antoninus left.

To the whole project. To Antoninus, Spartacus, and Crassius … these three men. That was the love story. Sure, Spartacus had a woman pregnant–that was his child for the future. But still the story was a boy who was loved by a man [Crassius]. And the boy did not want to capitulate, because he wasn’t sure what that was about. So he escapes and runs to his father figure, who is Spartacus. And then at the end Crassius has Antoninus and Spartacus fight. And I say to Spartacus, "I love you like I loved my father," and Spartacus says, " I loved you like the son I’ll never see," then kills me. That’s the powerful story of Spartacus. It’s valuable to the film, because now it makes sense in a lot of areas. I feel Spartacus should have been about the three men. That would have made an intriguing and interesting story, wouldn’t it?