Oscars 2023: Jamie Lee Curtis Is a Second-Generation Oscar Nominee
Jamie Lee Curtis is a Hollywood legend. She’s had a decades-long career and earned a shelf full of accolades, including a BAFTA and two Golden Globes. But she had to wait until 2023 to get her first Oscar nomination. This year, she’s nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category for her role in Everything Everywhere All at Once. The recognition puts her on track to be the first person in her famous family to win an Oscar. Both her parents were also nominated for Academy Awards, though neither won.
Jamie Lee Curtis’s father, Tony Curtis, was nominated for Best Actor for ‘The Defiant Ones’
Curtis, who was born in 1958, is the daughter of Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. Her father started acting in the late 1940s, with roles in movies such as The Lady Gambles and City Across the River. Later, he starred in acclaimed films such as The Sweet Smell of Success, Spartacus, and Some Like It Hot.
Tony Curtis received his first – and only – Oscar nomination in 1959, for The Defiant Ones. He and Sidney Poitier co-starred in the movie about two chained-together convicts who seize a chance to escape and then must confront their racial prejudice while on the run. Poitier was also nominated for his role in the movie. The other Best Actor nominees that year were Spencer Tracy for The Old Man and The Sea and Paul Newman for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. David Niven won the trophy for his performance in Separate Tables.
Janet Leigh received an Oscar nomination for ‘Psycho’
Jamie Lee Curtis’s mother Janet Leigh was also an Oscar nominee. Like her husband, she got her start in Hollywood in the late 1940s, appearing in movies such as Little Women and Act of Violence. Later, she starred in movies such as Touch of Evil, Bye Bye Birdie, and The Manchurian Candidate.
Leigh’s most iconic role was as the doomed Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. In 1961, she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her work in the movie. The other nominees that year were Glynis Johns for The Sundowners; Shirley Knight for The Dark at the Top of the Stairs; Mary Ure for Sons and Lovers; and Shirley Jones for Elmer Gantry. Jones took home the trophy.
Jamie Lee Curtis never felt she’d ‘be anywhere near the level’ of her famous parents
Jamie Lee Curtis has carved out her own career distinct from that of her parents. However, The Halloween star has said she never expected to follow in her mother and father’s footsteps with an Oscar nomination.
“I never thought that would happen,” she told People of what it was like to be nominated in the same category as her mother, who died in 2004. “Like my parents and their fame and their stardom was so legendary that I’ve never felt like I would be anywhere near the level. It’s a beautiful link. It’s a lineage link.”
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