Kelly Curtis, an actress and the daughter of Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, died Saturday morning, her youthful sister, Jamie Lee Curtis, announced. She was 69.
Curtis died “in her home. In nature. At peace,” her sister wrote on social media. “She was my first friend and lifelong confidant. She was jaw droppingly beautiful, and a talented actress. She played a mean game of hearts, collected turtles, loved her family, nature, music, thrifting, travel, Facebook, and Pokémon Go. She was proud of her Danish roots and Hungarian Jewish ancestry and was a devoted American patriot.”
No different particulars of her dying had been instantly accessible.
Kelly Curtis appeared in a small position along with her sister in Buying and selling Locations (1983) and starred within the 1987 German comedy film Magic Sticks and the 1991 Italian horror movie The Satan’s Daughter, co-written and produced by Dario Argento.
She additionally had a recurring position as Lieutenant Carolyn Plummer on the primary season of the 1996-99 UPN sequence The Sentinel and confirmed up on episodes of such exhibits as The Equalizer, Hunter, Silk Stalkings, Star Trek: Deep House 9, Judging Amy and extra.
Born in Santa Monica on June 17, 1956, Kelly Lee Curtis made her first look on the display within the journey movie The Vikings (1958), which starred her mother and father.
Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis with daughters Kelly, then 5, and Jamie, then 2 1/2, in September 1961.
She graduated from Skidmore Faculty in Saratoga Springs, New York, with a level in enterprise in 1972 and labored as a stockbroker, then studied performing on the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. In 1982, she appeared onstage in Say Goodnight, Gracie.
She additionally directed the 2018 documentary Marby Jets Are Go, about an Australian highschool monitor workforce, and served as an assistant to her sister on Freaky Friday (2003), Christmas With the Kranks (2004) and You Once more (2010).
Her mother and father married in 1951, and after Jamie Lee was born in 1958, they divorced in 1962, when her mom wed financier Robert Brandt. They had been collectively till Leigh’s dying in 2004 at age 77. Brandt died in 2009 at 82.
Tony Curtis, who was married six instances and died in 2010 at age 85, obtained an Oscar nomination for his flip in The Defiant Ones (1958) and starred in such classics as Candy Scent of Success (1957) and Some Like It Scorching (1958). Leigh additionally was nominated for an Oscar, for her efficiency in Psycho (1960), and she or he had memorable performances in Contact of Evil (1958) and The Manchurian Candidate (1962) as properly.
Jamie Lee Curtis gained an Oscar for her work in All the pieces In every single place All at As soon as (2022).
Along with her sister, survivors embrace her husband, John Marsh, a filmmaker, producer and professor emeritus on the Faculty of Southern Nevada (the couple partnered on the documentary manufacturing firm Liberty Movies); her brother-in-law, actor-director Christopher Visitor; and half-siblings Alexandra, Allegra, Ben and Nicholas.
