SATA

PERSONAL

Born November 22, 1958; daughter of Tony Curtis (an actor) and Janet Leigh (an actress); married Christopher Guest (an actor, writer, and director), December, 1984; children: Annie, Tom.

EDUCATION:

Attended University of the Pacific, 1977.

ADDRESS

• Home - Los Angeles, CA.
• Agent - Rick Kurtzman, Creative Artists Agency, 2000 Ave. of the Stars, Los Angeles, CA, 90067.

CAREER

Actor and author. Television appearances include Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story, 1981; Money on the Side, 1982; As Summers Die, 1986; Anything but Love (series), 1988-91; The Heidi Chronicles, 1995; Nicholas’s Gift, 1998; Pigs Next Door (series), 2000; NCIS, 2012; New Girl, 2012, 2014-18; and Scream Queens, 2015—. Film appearances include Halloween, 1978; The Fog, 1980; Prom Night, 1980; Halloween II, 1981; Love Letters, 1982; Trading Places, 1983; Grandview, U.S.A., 1984; Perfect, 1984; A Fish Called Wanda, 1988; Blue Steel, 1989, Mother’s Boys, 1994; True Lies, 1994; House Arrest, 1996; Fierce Creatures, 1997; Homegrown, 1998; Halloween H 2.O, 1998; Virus, 1999; Drowning Mona, 2000; The Tailor of Panama, 2001; Daddy and Them, 2001; Boogeyman, 2001; Halloween Resurrection, 2002; Freaky Friday, 2003; Christmas with the Kranks, 2004; Beverly Hills Chihuahua, 2008; You Again, 2010; Veronica Mars, 2014, and Halloween, 2018. Children’s book author, beginning 1993; honorary chair of National Library Week, 2009; speaker at schools, libraries, and conferences.

AVOCATIONS:

Photography.

MEMBER:

Screen Actors Guild.

AWARDS:

British Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, 1983, for Trading Places; Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Comedy, 1990, for Anything but Love, and for Best Actress in a Motion Picture, 1995, for True Lies; American Comedy Award for Funniest Actress in a Motion Picture, and Saturn Award, Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, both 1995, both for True Lies; awarded star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, 1998; named Woman of the Year, Hasty Pudding Theatricals, 2000.

WRITINGS

• FOR CHILDREN
• When I Was Little: A Four-Year-Old’s Memoir of Her Youth, illustrated by Laura Cornell, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1993
• Tell Me Again about the Night I Was Born, illustrated by Laura Cornell, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1995
• Today I Feel Silly, and Other Moods That Make My Day, illustrated by Laura Cornell, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1998
• Where Do Balloons Go? An Uplifting Mystery, illustrated by Laura Cornell, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2000
• I’m Gonna Like Me: Letting off a Little Self-Esteem, illustrated by Laura Cornell, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2002
• It’s Hard to Be Five: Learning How to Work My Control Panel, illustrated by Laura Cornell, Joanna Cotler Books (New York NY), 2004
• Is There Really a Human Race?, illustrated by Laura Cornell, Joanna Cotler Books (New York NY), 2006
• Big Words for Little People, illustrated by Laura Cornell, Joanna Cotler Books (New York, NY), 2008
• My Mommy Hung the Moon: A Love Story, illustrated by Laura Cornell, Joanna Cotler Books (New York, NY), 2010
• My Brave Year of Firsts: Tries, Sighs, and High Fives, illustrated by Laura Cornell, Joanna Cotler Books (New York, NY), 2012
• This Is Me: A Story of Who We Are and Where We Came From, illustrated by Laura Cornell, Workman Publishing (New York, NY), 2016
• Me, Myself, & I: A Cautionary Tale, illustrated by Laura Cornell, Feiwel and Friends (New York, NY), 2018
• OTHER
• (With mother Janet Leigh) There Really Was a Hollywood, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1984

Contributor to Huffington Post.

SIDELIGHTS

Since first gaining a measure of celebrity for her role as the teenaged victim in the wildly popular 1978 film Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis has enjoyed continued success on both the big and small screens. Curtis has also forged a successful career as a children’s author, penning such bestselling tales as Big Words for Little People, My Mommy Hung the Moon: A Love Story, and My Brave Year of Firsts: Tries, Sighs, and High Fives.

The daughter of film stars Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, Curtis spent a semester at the University of the Pacific before auditioning for roles in Hollywood. Due to her striking looks, she was quickly signed to Universal Studios, where she worked as an extra and in small roles on television series. In 1978 she won her first starring role, in the low-budget slasher film Halloween, one of the top-grossing B-movies of all time.

Curtis’s career flourished in the 1980s with films such as Trading Places and A Fish Called Wanda as well as the television series Anything but Love, which netted her a prestigious Golden Globe Award. Other notable film appearances include the twentieth-anniversary return to her original character in Halloween H2.O. Curtis has also had leading parts in True Lies, The Tailor of Panama, the remake of the Disney classic Freaky Friday, and the television series Scream Queens, a dark, satirical comedy/mystery.

Curtis got the idea for her first published children’s story, When I Was Little , when her daughter Annie—then only four—began describing all the wonderful things she has learned to do, including ending her dependance on her pacifier. When I Was Little describes the growing list of accomplishments made by a proud child as she looks back upon infancy: no more mushy baby food to eat, no more “floaties” to help her swim, and no more temper tantrums. Calling this child’s perspective on babyhood “truly hilarious,” Debra S. Gold added in School Library Journal that Curtis’s “simple text” in When I Was Little “is funny and honest, perfectly capturing that whimsical, innocent way that children view the world.”

 

Inspired by her experience adopting her daughter, Curtis wrote Tell Me Again about the Night I Was Born. As a Publishers Weekly reviewer wrote, “It’s hard to imagine a warmer celebration of the special joys of an adopted family.” Framed as the retelling of a favorite family story, Tell Me Again describes memories of the special moment when parents first held their chosen new child. From the ring of the phone in the middle of the night to announce the baby’s arrival to their trip to the hospital, the first diaper change, and initial first tears of joy, Tell Me Again about the Night I Was Born “affirms family love, the pleasure parents feel about new babies, and how pleased children are to hear the story of their birth,” according to School Library Journal critic Ruth K. MacDonald.

With Today I Feel Silly, and Other Moods That Make My Day, Curtis details thirteen different feelings a young girl experiences over the course of two weeks. From silly to quiet to cranky to sad, the little redhead captured in Cornell’s illustrations shares her moods in rhyming couplets. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly described the book as “upbeat” as well as an “amiable enough outing,” while in Booklist Stephanie Zvirin called Today I Feel Silly, and Other Moods That Make My Day both “colorful [and] energetic” as well as a story that “uses comedy to promote an understanding of common emotions.” As Valerie Caghlan wrote in Books for Keeps, Curtis’s text lets children know “that it is normal and acceptable to have mood swings.”

The talents of Curtis and Cornell are again paired in Where Do Balloons Go? An Uplifting Mystery. A little boy lets go of his purple balloon and watches it float away, wondering what will become of it. Curtis employs “snappy rhyme,” according to Horn Book critic Susan P. Bloom, while pondering the boy’s questions. Meanwhile, Cornell’s artwork captures the balloon as it goes out dining or visits a spa, incorporating visual “nudges adults will enjoy,” as Bloom mentioned. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly wrote that Where Do Balloons Go? “may well raise youngsters’ spirits” and start imaginations flying “way out there—in a kid-pleasing way.”

In It’s Hard to Be Five: Learning How to Work My Control Panel, “Curtis and Cornell playfully and honestly portray the inner struggles” of a well-meaning but impulsive youngster, as Isabel Killoran remarked in Childhood Education. A writer in Kirkus Reviews predicted that “children will relate to this vivacious tale” of a boy who, despite his best efforts, still bites his companions and yells at inappropriate moments. A different personality type is captured in Big Words for Little People , in which a girl takes pride in her ever-expanding vocabulary, which includes words like “consequence,” “privacy,” and “cooperate.” As in her other works, Curtis displays “her trademark sensibility for childhood’s simultaneously awkward and silly moments,” according to School Library Journal critic Jayne Damron.

Curtis explores the importance of teamwork, the benefits of diversity, and the meaning of success in Is There Really a Human Race?, as a boy and his mother speak of lofty things. The book contains “sound philosophy ingeniously expressed in an amusing and insightful way,” according to a critic for Kirkus Reviews. In My Mommy Hung the Moon a youngster takes center stage, extolling the many virtues of his amazing, exuberant parent. My Mommy Hung the Moon “manages to convey a child’s sense of adoration with just the right amount of glee,” wrote Kara Schaff Dean in her School Library Journal review.

Discussing what she wants children and parents to gain from reading her books, Curtis told Writer’s Digest interviewer Marcy Kennedy Knight that “What I hope is that they enjoy reading it. Whatever the book is about, that it creates some dialogue, some way of communicating with their 4-to 8-year-old. That they can find a way in. That the language and intent of the book, be it self-esteem, loss and letting go, creativity, self-control … that it opens up an avenue of communication which is open and free.”

START NEW

In her children’s book titled Me, Myself, & I: A Cautionary Tale, Curtis addresses the twenty-first century phenomenon of smart phones, the practice of taking “selfies,” and the growing use of modern phone technology. “It’s a runaway train, and nobody is talking about it,” Curtis stated in an NBC News website article. Curtis went on to note children often follow in their parents footsteps in many ways, and that includes cell phone usage. Addressing the potential pitfalls of cell phone technology, Curtis pointed out in the article: “We see so many young people who are dysmorphic, who look in the mirror and are not satisfied with what they see.” Curtis went on later to state: “Apps have given us this idea that we can alter ourselves— that you alone are not enough, that your being needs to be altered with a bunny face or a chipmunk, with a new voice, with a face that has no blemishes,” adding: “If you turn off the phone, at least then you will not have these images constantly served to you that make you feel like you are not enough.”

Curtis got the inspiration for Me, Myselfie, & I after she received a selfie stick for Christmas and posted a photograph of herself on Instagram with the caption: “Mommy got a selfie stick.” A friend asked Curtis if that was a children’s book. Curtis, who had been thinking about just such a book for a while, went on to write Me, Myselfie, & I. The Book, illustrated by Laura Cornell, features a young child narrator telling the story about how the family bought their old-fashioned mother a cell phone for her birthday. Initially, the cell phone seems like a great fit, something the entire family can have fun with. Then the family teaches Mom how to take selfies. The narrator’s mother, however, becomes obsessed with taking the perfect selfie. No matter what the family does, from skiing to dance class, Mom seems to pay more attention to the phone and taking selfies than to everything going on around her. Then one day Mom posts a selfie of herself with a birthday cake smashed on her head. When the photo goes viral, Mom becomes even more maniacal about taking selfies everywhere, from the post office to the grocery store. Eventually, the young narrator decides its time for Mom to turn off her phone.

“There’s no denying the merit of this raucous tale’s message,” noted a Publishers Weekly contributor. John Valeri, writing for the News and Times web site, noted: “The story itself is both timely and timeless (who can’t relate to selfie-mania, or some similarly consuming affliction?), and invites laughter and levity while imparting an important lesson about living in the moment rather than living for a picture of the moment.” CLOSE NEW

 

 

BIOCRIT
BOOKS

• Children’s Literature Review, Volume 88, Gale (Detroit, MI), 2003.

• International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, Volume 3: Actors and Actresses, 4th edition, edited by Tom Pendergast and Sara Pendergast, Gale (Detroit, MI), 2000.

• Thomson, David, The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, Knopf (New York, NY), 2014.

PERIODICALS

• Booklist, October 15, 1998, Stephanie Zvirin, review of Today I Feel Silly, and Other Moods That Make My Day, p. 426; October 1, 2002, Karin Snelson, review of I’m Gonna Like Me: Letting off a Little Self-Esteem, p. 334; October 15, 2004, Ilene Cooper, review of It’s Hard to Be Five: Learning How to Work My Control Panel, p. 410; September 15, 2006, Ilene Cooper, review of Is There Really a Human Race?, p. 66; November 1, 2008, Abby Nolan, review of Big Words for Little People, p. 45; November 15, 2010, Randall Enos, review of My Mommy Hung the Moon: A Love Story, p. 51; July 1, 2012, Kay Weisman, review of My Brave Year of Firsts: Tries, Sighs, and High Fives, p. 71.

• Books for Keeps, September, 2001, Valerie Caghlan, review of Today I Feel Silly and Other Moods That Make My Day, p. 22.

• Childhood Education, summer, 2006, Isabel Killoran, review of It’s Hard to Be Five, p. 244.

• Children’s Book and Play Review, January-February, 2001, Carla Morris, review of Where Do Balloons Go? An Uplifting Mystery, pp. 17-18.

• Esquire, July, 1985, interview with Curtis, p. 66.

• Horn Book, November-December, 2000, Susan P. Bloom, review of Where Do Balloons Go?, p. 745; November-December, 2006, Roger Sutton, review of Is There Really a Human Race?, p. 698.

• Horn Book Guide, spring, 2011, Nell Beram, review of My Mommy Hung the Moon, p. 6; spring, 2013, Nell Beram, review of My Brave Year of Firsts, p. 26.

• Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 2002, review of I’m Gonna Like Me, p. 952; August 1, 2004, review of It’s Hard to Be Five, p. 740; July 15, 2006, review of Is There Really a Human Race?, p. 721; August 1, 2008, review of Big Words for Little People; August 15, 2012, review of My Brave Year of Firsts.

• Magpies, March, 1998, Ricki Blackhall, review of Tell Me Again about the Night I Was Born, p. 26.

• New York Times, July 17, 1994, Caryn James, review of True Lies, p. C13.

• Publishers Weekly, August 5, 1996, review of Tell Me Again about the Night I Was Born, p. 441; September 7, 1998, review of Today I Feel Silly, and Other Moods That Make My Day, p. 94; August 21, 2000, review of Where Do Balloons Go?, p. 73; September 30, 2002, review of I’m Gonna Like Me, pp. 70-71; September 6, 2004, review of It’s Hard to Be Five, p. 62; July 31, 2006, review of Is There Really a Human Race?, p. 74; September 13, 2010, review of My Mommy Hung the Moon, p. 43; July 30, 2018, review of Me, Myselfie & I, p. 88. 

• School Library Journal, November, 1993, Debra S. Gold, review of When I Was Little: A Four-Year-Old’s Memoir of Her Youth, p. 78; October, 1996, Ruth K. MacDonald, review of Tell Me Again about the Night I Was Born, p. 91; December, 1998, Martha Topol, review of Today I Feel Silly, and Other Moods That Make My Day, p. 82; December 2000, Marie Orlando, review of Where Do Balloons Go?, p. 106; October, 2002, Roxanne Burg, review of I’m Gonna Like Me, p. 100; December, 2004, Wanda Meyers-Hines, review of It’s Hard to Be Five, p. 105; August, 2006, Alice DiNizo, review of Is There Really a Human Race?, p. 78; October, 2008, Jayne Damron, review of Big Words for Little People, p. 104; January, 2011, Kara Schaff Dean, review of My Mommy Hung the Moon, p. 70; October, 2012, Gay Lynn Van Vleck, review of My Brave Year of Firsts, p. 94; June, 2016, Daryl Grabarek, review of This Is Me: A Story of Who We Are and Where We Came From, p. 74.

• Writer’s Digest, February, 2013, Marcy Kennedy Knight, interview with Curtis, p. 44.

ONLINE

• Baby Bookworm, https://thebabybookwormblog.wordpress.com/ (September 3, 2018), review of Me, Myselfie & I.

• Biography.com, http://www.biography.com/ (December 1, 2016), profile of Curtis.*

• EW.com, https://ew.com/ (March 21, 2017), Nivea Serrao, “Jamie Lee Curtis Announces New Selfie-Themed Picture Book.”

• News and Times, 

• NBC News website, https://www.nbcnews.com/ (September 16, 2018), Jamie Lee Curtis, “Jamie Lee Curtis Parents, Pub Down Your Cellphones. Your Kids Are Watching.”

• News and Times, http://www.newsandtimes.com/ (September 5, 2018), John Valeri, “The Poignant Pragmatism of Me, Myselfie & I.”