IN MY OWN WORDS

By TONY CURTIS
Former Navy Signalman 3rd Class

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.

At 17, I dreamed of seeing the world. At 19, I had been around the world and back. I joined the Navy hoping to be submariner and ended up in the sub service aboard a tender in the Pacific. I was in Pearl Harbor, Guam and Guadalcanal along the way. My ship (USS Proteus) was in Tokyo Bay for the Japanese surrender and I saw the signing of the peace treaty that marked the end of the war. That was a remarkable event.

The service meant so much to me. You don’t know how privileged I feel and how lucky I am to have served. Look at what I have been able to do. The government gave me enough money to go to acting school. Before I was in the Navy I knew I wanted to be an actor, and I was able to study drama and get into the movies [and, in the process, change his name from Bernard Schwartz to Anthony Curtis].

I’ve been in the movies for 50 years, I’ve made 130 some-odd movies [earning an Academy Award nomination as best actor for 1958’s “The Defiant Ones”]. 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. Isn’t that a document of the dream of any American boy? Isn’t it wonderful?

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. And I’m an author. All of these things were possible because of my time in the service.

I’m the son of immigrants [from Hungary] who came here with nothing. My whole world before I joined the Navy was my neighborhood in the Bronx. The Navy opened doors for me that would not have been possible any other way, and for that I am forever grateful.

I don’t do it that often, but I like hanging around with guys like these [Midway veterans. Curtis was the special guest at the 62nd Battle of Midway Commemoration on May 28 at the Navy Memorial in Washington, D.C.] and hearing about their experiences, and what they’ve gone on to do with their lives after the war. Did they go to school or become businessmen, or just go back to the family farm? And I try to picture what they must have looked like back then, when they were kids, just like I was.

But to me, the important thing is I think of the guys, the men and women, who didn’t survive the war. 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.

Had they lived they would have had children and they would have had grandchildren and they would have become great doctors and lawyers, and some rascals. What we’re missing now is how they would have changed the world.