Jamie Lee Curtis might be a nepo baby, but her parents, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, had no say on whether she’d enter the family business. She nearly pursued a career as a cop before she got her first big role as Laurie Strode in Halloween. Still, she wouldn’t have thought an acting career was possible if it weren’t for her parents.

Curtis and Leigh were one of Hollywood’s most famous couples, but their marriage ended like most showbiz marriages. Jamie witnessed the truth of their relationship. The two legendary actors didn’t get along behind closed doors and hated each other for most of their marriage.

How Long Were Jamie Lee Curtis’ Parents Tony Curtis And Janet Leigh Married?

Tony Curtis, known for Some Like It Hot, and Janet Leigh, the scream queen from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, married in 1951. They became one of Hollywood’s high-profile couples. According to Express, they were madly in love. Curtis even defied his film studio heads, who demanded he marry his frequent co-star Piper Laurie, by marrying Leigh.

“I knew that if she married me, it would be for myself, because she was already an established star,” Curtis said. “It wasn’t as if marrying me was going to do anything for her career.”

Via: Instar

The couple went on to co-star together in five films: Houdini (1953), The Black Shield of Falworth (1954), The Vikings (1958), The Perfect Furlough (1958), and Who Was That Lady? (1960). They also had cameos in a sixth film, Pepe (1960).

Curtis and Leigh had two children, Kelly, born in 1956, and Jamie Lee, born in 1958. However, things between the couple weren’t always as picture-perfect as they let on. No amount of Hollywood glamor could hide their turbulent marriage.

Why Jamie Lee Curtis Said Her Parents Hated Each Other

Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh’s marriage started off loving, but as each of their careers blossomed, so did their competition. They fought for the spotlight. Later, Jamie Lee, who recently won an Oscar for Everything Everywhere All At Once, said of her parents, “Public attention was very important to my parents. They required that attention all the way through the end of their lives.”

Curtis once said, “No other husband-and-wife team came close to us until Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, but that was 10 years later. They did it through scandal. We did it through the movies and people’s affection.”

Via: Instar

Curtis and Leigh tried to give their daughters the best childhood and a loving family, but things started to crack between the couple. “‘There are only a couple reminders to me that I was born from love and not resentment, competition, jealousy and rancor which are the cornerstones of any unpleasant divorce,” Jamie Lee said.

Curtis admitted that the fracture in his relationship with his wife began when he started feeling inferior to her. “She, like most people I met in Hollywood, had more self-confidence than I did… I badly wanted her to admire me back. She was better educated than I was, and I was honored that she wanted to spend time with me.

“I tried harder to behave in a way that didn’t anger her, and she made the same effort for me. We settled into a functional but unromantic marriage, the kind of life that was less unusual in Hollywood than you might think.”

Curtis was a self-proclaimed womanizer but grew increasingly jealous whenever his wife was around other men. He accused her of having an affair with Frank Sinatra. Jamie Lee once admitted she always felt she’d been conceived to save her parent’s relationship. “Like any other save-the-marriage baby, I failed,” she said.

“My parents hated each other my whole life. I was raised in a house of hatred…,” she added. “My mother persevered through it all and survived. I’m not sure my sister and I did. There was no Demi [Moore] and Bruce [Willis] amicable divorce or joint family vacations for us. No love was left between them.”

Ultimately, it was rumors of Curtis’ affair with his 17-year-old co-star from Tara Bulbas that made the couple divorce in 1962 after 11 years of marriage (per CBS).

What Was Jamie Lee Curtis’ Relationship Like With Her Parents Following Their Divorce?

After Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh divorced, the actor married Christine Kaufmann, whom he divorced in 1968. They had two children together. He went on to marry Leslie Curtis (1968-1982), with whom he had two more children, Andrea Savio (1984-1992), Lisa Deutsch (1993-1994), and Jill VandeBerg, who he married in 1998 and remained with until his death in 2010.

Via: Instagram

The same year she divorced Curtis, Leigh married Robert Brandt, and the pair remained married for 42 years until she died in 2004. Curtis had little involvement with his daughters for years. “There was a long time after that when I didn’t get along with my daughters, because I didn’t see them,” he said. “Not that Janet was stopping me. I was suffering a lot. I couldn’t be bothered with anybody.”

In 1980, Curtis told People that Leigh had told Jamie Lee horrible things about him. “She had heard that I was arrogant, uninterested, a rake, a womanizer, a drunk and a dope-taker,” he said. Leigh denied it. “I never knocked Tony to Jamie,” she said. Eventually, Jamie Lee reconciled with Curtis. “I understand him better now,” she said, “perhaps not as a father but as a man.”

In 2008, two years before his death, Curtis said, “We’re getting to the point where they realize I’m 83, so let’s be friends, but they’ve got to stay out of my life if they come in bent and angry because I left their mother I don’t know how long ago. Don’t I get a chance to be forgiven?”

Via: TheThings

Jamie Lee and Curtis might’ve reconciled, but the legendary actor didn’t include her or any of his children in his will. When Tony Curtis died in 2010, he wrote in his will: “I acknowledge the existence of my children… and have intentionally and with full knowledge chosen not to provide for them in this last will and testament.”

Jamie Lee has had many years to reflect on her parents’ marriage. She said she’s “often struggled with the idea of love” due to their turbulent relationship but loves them for inspiring her as an actor. Ultimately, Curtis and Leigh’s marriage and divorce were tame compared to other Hollywood couples.