About Jamie Lee Curtis:
American actress and writer Jamie Lee Curtis was born in Los Angeles, California, on November 22, 1958. She first became well-known for a number of popular horror movies, particularly Halloween (1978) and its sequels. Later, she found success in comedy and action roles.
In 2023, she got the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022). Born into Hollywood nobility, Jamie lee Curtis was the younger of two daughters of stars Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. She lived with her mother and stepfather, Robert Brandt, after her parents divorced in 1962 and she seldom ever saw her father.
Jamie lee Curtis struggled in school and attended many high schools, including Westlake School (now Harvard-Westlake School) in Los Angeles and Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Connecticut. Before deciding to pursue acting, she briefly attended the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. Curtis famously stated
She would wed British filmmaker, actor, and writer Christopher Guest in 1984 after seeing his photo in Rolling Stone magazine. The pair later adopted two children. Curtis became a baroness when Guest became the 5th Baron Haden-Guest following the death of her father in 1996, albeit the two never used their titles.
Jamie lee Curtis developed an addiction to alcohol and Vicodin in the late 1980s; she started using opioids following plastic surgery in reaction to a cameraman’s criticism of her eyes. She became sober in 1999 after treatment. Curtis, who was well-known for her candor, frequently discussed her struggles in an effort to help others. Eventually, she became outspoken about her refusal to conform to unattainable, often sexist, beauty standards.
In 1977, Jamie lee Curtis made her television debut, most famously on Operation Petticoat, which was based on the 1959 movie starring her father and Cary Grant. The sitcom ended in 1978, and the same year she made her big-screen debut in John Carpenter’s Halloween. She played Laurie Strode, a quiet, studious babysitter haunted by Michael Myers, a killer who seemed impossible to stop.
Jamie lee Curtis is claimed to have been offered the part because her mother had a renowned appearance in the famed shower scene of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 horror film Psycho. Nevertheless, Jamie lee Curtis’s performance contributed to Halloween’s enormous success, and some people rank it among the best horror movies ever produced.
Afterward, she acted in several more horror films, garnering the nickname “Scream Queen.” In 1980, she starred in The Fog, directed by Carpenter and including her mother, and later appeared in Prom Night. Curtis returned to the role in Halloween II the following year. Among her 1981 projects was the TV film Death of a Centerfold, a true-crime story inspired by the tragic killing of Dorothy Stratten.
Jamie lee Curtis first shown her versatility in 1983 when she costarred with Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd in the comedy Trading Places. The film was a great box-office triumph, and she earned a BAFTA Award for playing a warm-hearted prostitute.
Later on, she was cast as an aerobics instructor in John Travolta’s highly stylized romantic comedy Perfect (1985). Curtis costarred with John Cleese, Michael Palin, and Kevin Kline in the well-known comedy A Fish Called Wanda (1988), which was about a jewel theft.
In Kathryn Bigelow’s crime movie Blue Steel (1990), Curtis plays a police officer being hunted by a serial killer. The picture was referred to as a “woman’s action film,” but it didn’t find an audience. The 1991 family classic My Girl brought her and Aykroyd together on screen once more.She also costarred with Richard Lewis in the sitcom Anything But Love (1989–1992), which told the tale of coworkers who fall in love.
Jamie lee Curtis earned a Golden Globe Award (1990) for her performance. She costarred with Arnold Schwarzenegger in James Cameron’s popular action comedy True Lies in 1994, for which she won another Golden Globe. She is most known for her famous striptease scene.
Jamie lee Curtis played Laurie Strode again in Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later in 1998; her mother also made a brief appearance in the movie. Curtis later starred in John Boorman’s The Tailor of Panama (2001) starring Pierce Brosnan and Geoffrey Rush, adapted from the novel by John le Carré.
In Halloween: Resurrection (2002), Curtis’s character is killed off, implying her time in the franchise has over. She returned to comedy in Freaky Friday (2003), the remake of the 1976 film starring Lindsay Lohan, where a mother and daughter swap bodies. Curtis thereafter acted in other somewhat forgotten films and made sporadic TV appearances.
In 2018, Curtis returned to her roots by starring in Halloween, directed by David Gordon Green. The picture serves as a direct sequel to the 1978 original, bypassing the continuity of following editions. The film revitalized Curtis’s career and broke a number of box office records.
She later joined the star-studded cast of Knives Out (2019), a massively popular comic mystery directed by Rian Johnson and starring Daniel Craig as a detective. Her triumph continued with Halloween Kills (2021) and Halloween Ends (2022), the concluding piece of Green’s trilogy. It would be her final movie in the series, according to Curtis.
Curtis costarred with Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All at Once in 2022. The protagonist of the highly regarded science fiction comedy is an immigrant laundromat proprietor who has to save the multiverse. The film won seven Academy Awards, and for playing a merciless IRS auditor, Curtis received her first Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
Curtis scored another significant honor in 2024 when she received an Emmy for a guest part in the hit TV series The Bear, playing an alcoholic mother. She starred in the touching movie The Last Showgirl that same year, which tells the story of a cocktail waitress who learns that her Las Vegas show is closing after 30 years. Curtis and Lohan got back together for the follow-up Freakier Friday in 2025.
Beyond performing, Curtis achieved fame as a children’s book author. I’m Gonna Like Me: Letting Off a Little Self-Esteem (2002), It’s Hard to Be Five: Learning How to Work My Control Panel (2004), Me, My selfie & I: A Cautionary Tale (2018), Today I Feel Silly and Other Moods That Make My Day (1998), and When I Was Little: A Four-Year-Old’s Memoir of Her Youth (1993) were her first book.
Curtis also co-created the podcast Letters from Camp (2020–22), a scripted series using fiction to highlight the challenges encountered by teenagers, and Good Friend with Jamie Lee Curtis (2021–22), including her talks with various guests. She even added the title “inventor” to her resume in 1988 after being granted a patent for a disposable diaper with a baby wipe pocket built in.