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New York Times
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
The Broadway Best of Charles Strouse
'Bye Bye Birdie' and 'Annie,' the composer Charles Strouse's most popular musicals, were not just big hits that are regularly revived on professional and amateur stages. They captured essential elements of American culture, including a yearning for escape from an older generation's shackles and a can-do spirit to overcome adversity. Strouse, who died Thursday at 96, wrote jingles, pop songs and movie scores, but he remains famous for his Broadway shows. In addition to those two blockbusters, three others help make up his career peaks. Here are five numbers that illustrate Strouse's suppleness as a composer and his knack for instantly hummable melodies. 'Bye Bye Birdie' Few musicals showcase as many great numbers as this hit about the Elvis Presley-like star Conrad Birdie, who, as a publicity stunt, visits a Midwest family before shipping off to the Army. The movie version, from 1963, is one of Hollywood's best musicals of that decade, even though it made big changes to the show. The most egregious was casting Janet Leigh in the role of Rose Alvarez, played by Chita Rivera on Broadway. But it is hard to nitpick with the focus being shifted to Kim, a teenager discovering her sultry side, because she was played by Ann-Margret in an explosive performance that made her a star — she was particularly electric in the number 'A Lot of Livin' to Do.' Bonus video: In 2024, Vanessa Williams performed that song at the annual Miscast event, keeping the pronouns originally sung by Conrad Birdie intact. 'Golden Boy' Strouse teamed up again with his 'Birdie' lyricist, Lee Adams, for this somber-minded, boxing-themed vehicle for Sammy Davis Jr. (one of the entertainer's only four Broadway credits). The composer's ability to tap into a brassy energy is on full display in the sharp-edged number 'Don't Forget 127th Street,' and overall this is probably his jazziest score — 'Night Song' has been covered by several jazz acts including Art Blakey, Sarah Vaughan and Nina Simone. Based on a Clifford Odets play from 1937, the 'Golden Boy' musical changed the lead character of Joe from Italian American to Black and the underlying concerns from immigration to racial equality. The show was very much connected to the preoccupations of the civil rights era, and its interracial romance — and duets like 'I Want to Be With You' between Davis and his co-star, Paula Wayne — was not the kind of thing you often saw onstage at that time. 'It's a Bird … It's a Plane … It's Superman' Had the makers of 'Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark' consulted Strouse, he might have informed them that superhero musicals are a tough nut to crack. In 1966, he and Adams tried to make Superman sing and dance on Broadway, and the show crashed like the Man of Steel after being exposed to Kryptonite. The overall vibe was very much in sync with that of the goofy 'Batman' TV series, which also premiered in 1966 — the musical even included a number titled 'Pow! Bam! Zonk!' A standard did make it out, however: 'You've Got Possibilities.' Linda Lavin originated it on Broadway (and sang it in her cabaret shows over the decades), but this sultry cover by Peggy Lee, from her 1966 album 'Big Spender,' makes the most of Strouse's uncommon melodic gifts. 'Applause' This number, 'But Alive,' in which Lauren Bacall's diva of a character visits a Greenwich Village bar clearly packed with adoring gay men has to be one of the campiest romps ever. Strouse and Adams's musical 'Applause' was based on the Mary Orr short story that inspired 'All About Eve' (the studio did not relinquish the rights to the film itself), updated by the book writers Betty Comden and Adolph Green to 1970. Bacall played Margo Channing (immortalized by Bette Davis in the movie), and to say she was not an adept singer or dancer would be an understatement. She had, however, the necessary aura and she was game, making 'But Alive' completely irrepressible — perhaps even more so precisely because Bacall was not, well, Ann-Margret. Wouldn't you have been dancing and singing along with her, too? 'Annie' The 'Annie' number at the 1977 Tony Awards went on for a whopping 10 minutes, which feels downright epic by current Tony standards. Original cast members, including Andrea McArdle (Annie) and Dorothy Loudon (Miss Hannigan), presented an overview of the show dotted with generous excerpts from such great songs as 'You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile,' 'Easy Street' and, of course, the anthem of eternal optimism known as 'Tomorrow.' The show about a plucky young orphan who finds a new family during the Great Depression, by Strouse, the lyricist Martin Charnin and the book writer Thomas Meehan, was an instant smash, winning seven Tonys including best musical, and earning a spot in the pop-culture pantheon.
CBS News
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Jamie Lee Curtis revisits "Halloween," "Psycho," and "True Lies" artifacts
On a Thursday afternoon in Los Angeles, California, actor Jamie Lee Curtis stood over two leather-bound books. Costumes and props provided by the The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Academy Collection surrounded the actress and 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi. Curtis saw her donated copy of the script for "Halloween," the 1978 horror cult classic directed by John Carpenter that made Curtis the "scream queen" of her generation. Right beside it was the script for Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" once owned by her mother Janet Leigh, the actress who starred in the groundbreaking 1960 horror film. "This is beautiful," Curtis said, admiring them both side-by-side. "I haven't seen this since my mom died," she said, touching the "Psycho" script. They revisited cinema history as they examined each object, signposts of Curtis' acting career that's still going strong more than 40 years later. Curtis turned the worn pages of the "Psycho" script to page 52, the iconic scene that shocked audiences around the world. In the scene, Leigh's character, Marion Crane, removes her robe and steps into a shower, oblivious to the shadowy figure who then enters the bathroom and brutally murders her. Curtis told Alfonsi the film left a lasting impression on her mother. "She never took a shower again. She only took baths," she told Alfonsi. "Psycho" was infamous for its radical subversion of what audiences expected from Hollywood at the time: the star was killed less than halfway through the film. "What was shocking about it was that they killed the movie star on page 52... not even halfway through the movie," Curtis explained. "She was top billing because she was the movie star. And that was the whole conceit of [Hitchcock] hiring her." Also on the table was a clapboard from "Halloween." The film's title was written on a piece of white tape. Curtis was just 19 years old when she played the starring role. She waited until the last shot of the film to ask for the clapboard, and she kept it as a memento. Alfonsi asked Curtis if she had a favorite scene from the 1978 film. "I remember John Carpenter saying to me, 'I want you to be vulnerable'… And I wasn't smart enough at 19 to understand what that meant. And I kind of thought it meant weak," the actress said. But watching the film in front of an audience on opening weekend cleared up that confusion. In the film, Curtis' character, Laurie Strode, is babysitting across the street from a house where her friend P.J. is also babysitting. Laurie is talking to P.J. on the phone when they're suddenly cut off. The audience can see that the killer, Michael Myers, is strangling P.J. Laurie thinks it's a prank, but walks across the street to investigate after putting the kids to bed. "And it's inter-cut, back and forth…[me] walking toward the house, and then the house," Curtis told Alfonsi. "When I saw the movie in Hollywood on the opening weekend…a woman stood up in the middle of the theater during that moment and screamed out loud in the theatre, 'Don't go in there! There's a killer in the house!' Curtis said, imitating the woman's screams. "I understood in that second that that's what John [Carpenter] was talking about… they cared about this girl, and she was about to walk into mayhem." In 1994, Curtis starred opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in the action-comedy blockbuster "True Lies," directed by James Cameron. On display in front of Alfonsi and Curtis were two mannequins wearing similar dresses: one black dress with frills, another without them. In the film, Curtis' character, Helen Tasker, is duped into a phony spy mission: pose as an escort and plant a listening device on a client who, unbeknownst to her character, is her husband. Later, Tasker performs a striptease. Cameron's original vision was that Curtis would be completely nude in the striptease scene. But in a meeting with the director, Curtis suggested a different approach. "I kind of said to him, 'You know, Jim, you're gonna lose all the comedy because you're just going to be looking at my bits,'" the actress told Alfonsi. She stepped into the director's bathroom, put on a black dress, and stuffed some black tulle she purchased at a fabric store in the neck, arms, and hem of the dress. Curtis pitched a gradual wardrobe change for her character to Cameron that would take place in three steps. She would first wear the dress with tulle added. After seeing herself in the mirror and realizing it wasn't going to work for her mission, she would rip the tulle off of her dress. "'And then I unzip my dress and let it fall to the floor,'" she told the director. "I was wearing a pair of black panties and a bra. And I said, 'And then I'll be wearing this.'" Cameron was convinced. A costume designer made multiple dresses for the film based on Curtis' concept, which are now part of the Academy Collection. And in the film, Tasker catches herself in the mirror before her encounter with the mysterious target and rips the tulle off the dress. Curtis wore the dress without the tulle for most of the film, including action scenes where she had to run barefoot and dangle off the side of a helicopter. But the transformation that earned Curtis her first Academy Award came from her incredible performance as Deirdre Beaubeirdre, the auditor from hell in "Everything Everywhere All at Once." "Jamie Lee Curtis is completely unrecognizable as this character," Alfonsi told 60 Minutes Overtime. "I remember watching it the first time being like, 'Is that Jamie Lee Curtis?'" For the role, Curtis relaxed all of her muscles, which exaggerated the size of her stomach, creating the silhouette of a sedentary bureaucrat. She told 60 Minutes no prosthetics were used: what you see on the screen is all her. "I'm unbridled and I'm ungirdled… and I'm unclenched," she told Alfonsi. "Everything you see in that movie is me. There is no padding… that is just me releasing all of the things that we've spent our entire lives holding in. Every muscle in my body just relaxed." "She said she loves those roles where she's, you know, unclenched," Alfonsi told Overtime. "She talked about the freedom of being able to do that where maybe in the past in Hollywood, particularly with her mother, they were expected to be perfect all the time. Jamie Lee Curtis has really embraced imperfection." "The loss of vanity means freedom," the Hollywood star told Alfonsi standing in front of her wardrobe for Deirdre Beaubeirdre. "I want the freedom to be whoever it is [I'm playing]… I'm just trying to be honest and not fake." The video above was produced by Will Croxton. It was edited by Sarah Shafer. Thanks to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
CBS News
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Jamie Lee Curtis on her parents, parenthood and the roles that made her career
In Hollywood, it's not unusual for actors to try and fit the industry standard of beauty and marketability, plotting every outfit and career move with the prowess of a chessmaster. But Jamie Lee Curtis is not one of them. Candid and spontaneous, she fearlessly calls it as she sees it, even when it comes to herself. We met Jamie Lee Curtis in Los Angeles, where at 66 years old, she is savoring a new wave of award-winning performances. We asked her about her decades-long career. She told us it was anything but planned. Jamie Lee Curtis: My life hinged on a couple seconds I never saw coming. I never thought I'd be an actor in my life. My teeth were the color of concrete. They were gray. I was cute but not pretty. And so, I never saw that coming. She probably should have. Jamie Lee Curtis was born into Hollywood royalty, the daughter of screen-idols Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, two of the biggest stars during the golden age of cinema. But Jamie Lee says she wanted to be a cop. She was home from college, when a friend convinced her to audition for Universal Studios. Jamie Lee Curtis: I did the scene. And she said, "That was very good," whatever. And I was like, "Oh, OK. Great. Thanks." I said, "Listen, if this is gonna work out I need to know, because I'm going back to college in, like, two days." Sharyn Alfonsi: Very practical. Jamie Lee Curtis 60 Minutes Jamie Lee Curtis: So like, she laughed or whatever. And they called me the next day and they gave me a seven-year contract at Universal, and I quit college. Almost immediately, she booked the 1978 horror film "Halloween." Curtis was cast as the bookish babysitter, Laurie Strode, terrorized by an unrelenting killer. It was her first movie. She was 19 years old playing the lead. Sharyn Alfonsi: Were people saying, "Oh, she got the job because of who her parents are, because of the pedigree?" Jamie Lee Curtis: I know. I guarantee you the fact that my mother was in 'Psycho' was a determining factor that maybe that will get them a little extra publicity. Now, did it get me to that final two? No, my auditions got me to the final two. Jamie Lee Curtis: This was a $300,000 horror movie. This was not a job that a lot of people wanted. "Halloween" ended up grossing more than $70 million and became a cult classic. But it didn't exactly launch Jamie Lee Curtis' career. Jamie Lee Curtis: My big break after "Halloween" was, I was on "Love Boat" with Janet Leigh. Beautiful Janet Leigh playing my mother. And then I was in a "Charlie's Angels" episode where I am Cheryl Ladd's best friend, pro golfer. So those are the two jobs I get post "Halloween." Sharyn Alfonsi: Were you thinking at this point, like, "People aren't hiring me, they just want my mom around, or the name?" Jamie Lee Curtis: You know what? Sure. Sharyn Alfonsi: But didn't that bother you? Jamie Lee Curtis: No. Because-- because I was doin' my thing. Curtis' "thing" was transforming into a "scream queen" for a new generation with a string of horror movies. Sharyn Alfonsi: I read that you didn't even like scary movies. Jamie Lee Curtis: I don't like scary movies. Sharyn Alfonsi: Still? Jamie Lee Curtis: Still. Oh, please. Awful. Sharyn Alfonsi: Why? Jamie Lee Curtis: Awful. The smart aleck answer is because life is scary. Jamie Lee Curtis 60 Minutes It's a surprising thing to hear from an actress who's known for being fearless. Before that spin around the bedpost, opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in "True Lies." Curtis held her own next to Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd, in her first comedy feature, "Trading Places," directed by John Landis. She says her role as Ophelia, a wise, kind-hearted, street-walker is what really launched her career. Sharyn Alfonsi: That part, I mean, she's gritty, and the gum, and the whole thing. How much of that did you bring to her? Jamie Lee Curtis: John stuck gum in my mouth every day. Literally I would stand there and he'd walk up, I'd go, "OK." I mean, it's-- you know, it's just a great part. But here's the other thing, and-- this is crucial, and this will make the piece. If I'm not in "Trading Places," John Cleese does not write "A Fish Called Wanda" for me. If I'm not in "A Fish Called Wanda," Jim Cameron does not write the part in "True Lies" for me. And that grouping of films gave me my career, for sure. If it all sounds like fairytale, it wasn't. By the mid-80s, Jamie Lee Curtis was a well-established actor when she made a movie with John Travolta called "Perfect." By all accounts, and from every angle, she was. Jamie Lee Curtis: I took it very seriously as an actor and of course, I look really good in a leotard. And believe me, I've seen enough pictures of me in that leotard where even I go, like, "Really? Come on." But she says a cinematographer working on the film criticized the way she looked. Jamie Lee Curtis: He was like, "Yeah, I'm not shooting her today. Her eyes are baggy." And I was 25? So, for him to say that was very embarrassing. So as soon as the movie finished, I ended up having some plastic surgery. Sharyn Alfonsi: And how did that go? Jamie Lee Curtis: Not well. That's just not what you wanna do when you're 25 or 26. And I regretted it immediately and have kind of sort of regretted it since. Sharyn Alfonsi: Even now? Jamie Lee Curtis: Way so now because I've become a really public advocate to say to women, "You're gorgeous and you're perfect the way you are." So oh, yeah I, I, I, it was not a good thing for me to do. Sharyn Alfonsi: That's when you started been public about this-- you started taking pain-- pain killers. Jamie Lee Curtis 60 Minutes Jamie Lee Curtis: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean--Well they give them to you. I became very enamored with the warm bath of an opiate. You know, drank a little bit…never to excess, never any big public demonstrations, I was very quiet, very private about it but it became a dependency for sure. Curtis says she's been sober for 26 years. Sharyn Alfonsi: Did you worry when you shared your story of how you got sober that it would impact your career? Jamie Lee Curtis: I think I worried more that selling yogurt that makes you sh** was gonna impact my career than for me to acknowledge that I had an addiction. Um I make the joke. It's a funny joke but it's true. Ahh that yogurt commercial…famously parodied by "Saturday Night Live." Curtis, one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, suddenly began selling pantyhose and hawking rental cars. Sharyn Alfonsi: 'True Lies' had made $400 million. You coulda done anything you wanted to do but you were taking those spokesperson jobs. Why? Jamie Lee Curtis: For the most part because they allowed me to stay home with my kids. So, I am-- I am an imperfect, you know, working mom because no working moms are perfect. Sharyn Alfonsi: It's all scotch-taped together. Jamie Lee Curtis: I'm looking at one. You're speaking to one. We make it look good. We think we've done it. But the truth is, we feel badly. But I know how much time away from them I spent in pursuit of my own creativity. Curtis has two children with Christopher Guest, the actor and director best known for "This is Spinal Tap" and taking aim at dog shows and even filmmaking in a series of mockumentaries. They've been married for more than 40 years. Jamie Lee Curtis: My mother was married four times. My father was married five times. That's nine. My stepfather was married three, so I come from an immediate family of 12 marriages. So my joke, "I'm still married to my first husband," um you know, it was important to me that I stay married to my husband, that he's my husband. Sharyn Alfonsi: Did you ever pass up a role that you wish you had taken? Jamie Lee Curtis: No. Once their kids were grown, Curtis traded in carpool duty for unapologetically driving her own career. Jamie Lee Curtis: We're going this way.… She runs her own production company, which has a TV-series in the works, starring Nicole Kidman, and a feature film about the catastrophic Paradise wildfires in 2018. She's also running her own charity. Curtis has raised over a million dollars for Children's Hospital Los Angeles and donated another million to victims of the recent wildfires, which destroyed much of Altadena and the Pacific Palisades, including this home where she filmed the millennial hit "Freaky Friday and the upcoming sequel, "Freakier Friday." And four decades after the first "Halloween," she finally put that franchise to rest. But it is a string of raw, vulnerable characters that came to Curtis in her 60's that led to a comeback, even she never imagined: playing the aging waitress in "The Last Showgirl," or sucking the oxygen out of the kitchen as the combustible matriarch Donna Berzatto in Hulu's TV-series "The Bear." Sharyn Alfonsi: Donna, the images in my mind of her, buttering the bread, with the nails, and the eyelash on the cheek. Jamie Lee Curtis: The eyelash. That single eyelash I think won me an Emmy. I swear to God. Jamie Lee Curtis: I've waited my whole life for Donna, patiently, quietly cooking. 13:07:39;24 My own creative mental life, my own-- you know, my own alcoholism. It's just so beautifully written that you don't have to do anything. But it was 2022's mystical, somewhat, mind-bending "Everything Everywhere All at Once" that pushed Jamie Lee Curtis out of her comfort zone. Sharyn Alfonsi: Did you understand that role? Jamie Lee Curtis: Of course not-- Sharyn Alfonsi: When you got it? Jamie Lee Curtis: Not one second of it. Did I understand that script? No. Curtis says she did understand Deirdre Beaudbeirdre, the hardboiled bureaucrat from hell. Jamie Lee Curtis: We all know Deidre. She's a woman who's not loved. She's a woman who uses her power in her job to control people because she has no love in her life. Curtis was unrecognizable but her performance did not go unnoticed. Sharyn Alfonsi and Jamie Lee Curtis 60 Minutes Sharyn Alfonsi: Before the moment, though, first, when they call your name. Jamie Lee Curtis: Yes Sharyn Alfonsi: You say, I think? "Shut up." Jamie Lee Curtis: "Shut up." Totally, because that wasn't supposed to happen. Sharyn Alfonsi: Your mom never won an Oscar. Dad never won an Oscar. Jamie Lee Curtis: No, they didn't. They were both nominated. Sharyn Alfonsi: Does this make you feel like you're on even footing with your parents, who were these gigantic stars? Jamie Lee Curtis: You know, I think about surpassing my parents, which I have, emotionally. I have surpassed my parents with sobriety. My mother was restricted by what the industry wanted from her, and expected from her, and would allow from her. My mother would have hated "The Last Showgirl" because I showed what I really looked like. And so I have, I don't wanna say, surpassed them, but I, I have freedom. The morning after her Oscar win, a photographer asked Curtis to recreate a photo of actress Faye Dunaway and her statue from nearly 50 years ago. She agreed, with one condition. Jamie Lee Curtis: And I said to him, "Yeah, but I won't do it seriously. We have to make it funny." Jamie Lee Curtis hasn't just embraced imperfection, she's made it an art. Produced by Michael Karzis. Associate producer, Katie Kerbstat. Broadcast associate, Erin DuCharme. Edited by Matthew Danowski.
CBS News
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Jamie Lee Curtis never thought she'd be an actor, despite being born into Hollywood royalty
Jamie Lee Curtis was raised in the bosom of cinema royalty, her father was screen idol Tony Curtis and her mother, actress Janet Leigh, famously starred in Alfred Hitchcock's classic "Psycho." Despite that, she says she never thought she'd be an actor. "My life hinged on a couple seconds I never saw coming," Curtis, now 66, said. Landing her first feature film at 19 years old Curtis planned on being a cop. But, while home from college, a friend convinced Curtis to audition for Universal Studios. "I did the scene. And she said, 'That was very good' whatever," Curtis said. "And I was like, 'Oh, OK. Great. Thanks.' I said, 'Listen, if this is gonna work out I need to know, because I'm going back to college in, like, two days.'" Jamie Lee Curtis 60 Minutes She got a seven-year contract the next day and quit college. Almost immediately, Curtis booked the 1978 horror film "Halloween." She was cast as Laurie Strode, a bookish babysitter terrorized by an unrelenting killer named Michael Myers. Curtis acknowledges that her mother's role in "Psycho" probably played a role in the casting decision, but said it was her auditions that landed her the lead in her first ever feature film. "This was a $300,000 horror movie. This was not a job that a lot of people wanted," she said. "Halloween" ended up grossing more than $70 million and became a cult classic, but it didn't exactly launch Curtis' career. What Jamie Lee Curtis sees as her breakthrough role After booking "Halloween," Curtis was on "Love Boat" with her mother, who played her mother. Curtis went on to star in "Halloween II" and other horror films, including "The Fog," "Terror Train" and "Prom Night." She became the scream queen of the generation, but it was her first comedy feature, "Trading Places," directed by John Landis, that Curtis said really launched her career. In it, she held her own next to Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd, playing Ophelia, the wise, kind-hearted street walker. "This is crucial, and this will make the piece," Curtis said. "If I'm not in 'Trading Places,' John Cleese does not write 'A Fish Called Wanda' for me. If I'm not in 'A Fish Called Wanda,' Jim Cameron does not write the part in 'True Lies' for me. And that grouping of films gave me my career, for sure. For sure," she said. Perfect By the mid-80s, Curtis was a well-established actor when she made a movie with John Travolta called "Perfect." By all accounts, and from every angle, she was. Curtis played an aerobics instructor. "And of course I look really good in a leotard," she said. "And believe me, I've seen enough pictures of me in that leotard where even I go, like, 'Really? Come on.'" But she says a cinematographer working on the film criticized the way she looked. She was 25 and he called her out for baggy eyes, refusing to shoot her. "For him to say that was very embarrassing. So as soon as the movie finished I ended up having some plastic surgery," she said. Jamie Lee Curtis 60 Minutes Curtis started taking pain killers afterwards. "I became very enamored with the warm bath of an opiate, drank a little bit — never to excess, never any big public demonstrations, very quiet, very private about it but it became a dependency for sure," she said. Curtis said she's been sober for 26 years. 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi asked Curtis if she was worried sharing the story of her addiction would impact her career. "I think I worried more that selling yogurt that makes you sh** was gonna impact my career than for me to acknowledge that I had an addiction," Curtis said. "I make the joke. It's a funny joke. But it's true." Curtis' family That yogurt commercial, which was later parodied by "Saturday Night Live," wasn't her only commercial. Curtis, one of the biggest stars in Hollywood after "True Lies" made roughly $400 million, also did commercials for pantyhose and rental cars. "For the most part because they allowed me to stay home with my kids," Curtis said. "I am an imperfect, you know, working mom. Because no working moms are perfect." Curtis has two children with Christopher Guest, the actor and director best known for the "This is Spinal Tap." They've been married for more than 40 years. "My mother was married four times. My father was married five times. That's nine," Curtis said. "My stepfather was married three. So I come from an immediate family of 12 marriages. So my joke, 'I'm still married to my first husband,' you know, it was important to me that I stay married to my husband, that he's my husband." A comeback for Curtis Once their kids were grown up, Curtis traded in carpool duty for unapologetically driving her own career. Curtis now runs her own production company, Comet Pictures, which has a TV series in the works starring Nicole Kidman, called "Scarpetta," and a feature film coming up about the catastrophic Paradise wildfires in 2018, called "The Lost Bus." She's written more than a dozen best-selling children's books, including some best sellers, and also runs her own charity, called My Hand in Yours, which has raised over $1 million for Children's Hospital Los Angeles. Curtis donated another million to victims of the recent wildfires, which destroyed much of Altadena and the Pacific Palisades, including the home where she filmed the millennial hit "Freaky Friday" and the upcoming sequel, "Freakier Friday." And four decades after the first "Halloween," she finally put that franchise to rest with "Halloween Ends." But it was a string of raw, vulnerable characters that came to Curtis in her 60s that's led to a comeback even she never imagined, playing the aging waitress in "The Last Showgirl," or sucking the oxygen out of the kitchen as the combustible matriarch Donna Berzatto in Hulu's TV series "The Bear." "I've waited my whole life for Donna, patiently, quietly cooking. My own creative mental life, my own, you know, my own alcoholism," Curtis said. "It's just so beautifully written that you don't have to do anything." Sharyn Alfonsi and Jamie Lee Curtis 60 Minutes In 2022's mystical, somewhat, mind-bending "Everything Everywhere All at Once," Curtis was unrecognizable as hardboiled bureaucrat Deirdre Beaubeirdre. The performance won her an Oscar — neither of her parents ever won, though they were both nominated for the award. "You know, I think about surpassing my parents, which I have, emotionally. I have surpassed my parents with sobriety. My mother was restricted by what the industry wanted from her, and expected from her, and would allow from her. My mother would have hated 'The Last Showgirl' because I showed what I really looked like," Curtis said. "And so I have, I don't wanna say, surpassed them, but I have freedom." That freedom was on display the morning after her Oscar win. A photographer asked Curtis to recreate a photo of actress Faye Dunaway and her statue from nearly 50 years ago. Curtis agreed, with one condition. "I said to him, 'Yeah, but I won't do it seriously. We have to make it funny.'"
