70 in the Fast Lane : Tony Curtis, in O.C. for Benefit, Says He Doesn’t Allow Age to Cramp His Style

Tony Curtis figures he’ll be a young handsome boy in perpetuity.

It’s not that he hasn’t had to confront the same realities as other 70-year-olds; he’s just ignoring them:

* In Huntington Beach at a weekend event, he schmoozes with those his age and older . . . but has his 25-year-old girlfriend at his side.

* In a nearly 50-year movie career, he has starred in such classics as “Some Like It Hot” and “Spartacus” . . . but is watching his weight in preparation for his next movie, “The Continuing Adventures of the Reptile Man.”

* After walking an hour in the sun, he is tired and doesn’t mind sitting down to rest . . . but he’ll be driving home to Bel-Air in his racy white convertible Trans Am.

Curtis was in Huntington Beach at a Saturday fund-raiser to benefit the city’s senior citizens. It is the second year he’s lent his presence to the event, proceeds from which are used to feed the needy elderly in the community. The event, which drew about 2,000 people, raised $10,000.

Pat Davis, president of the Huntington Beach Council on Aging, which sponsored the event at Huntington Pacifica Park, says Curtis was asked to attend because the elderly can relate to him.

“‘He’s outgoing, cordial and friendly. Seniors connect with Tony--and the fact that he’s a senior helps,” Davis says.

On getting older, says Curtis: “I really have no sense of it. . . . I don’t memorize phrases like ‘You’re only as young as you feel,’ or ‘Life is just a bowl of cherries,’ or ‘Each day is next to the best day.’ These are all euphemisms. . . . Living to me is that I’m just enjoying myself.”

Meeting a public that still adores him and arriving, unabashedly, with girlfriend Jill Vanden Berg underscores the point.

Holding her hand and calling her his “darling,” Curtis proudly introduces Vanden Berg, who, at 5 foot 11 and wearing six-inch stiletto-heeled white platform shoes, towers over him. He’s not the only one who’s turning heads.

Vanden Berg, outfitted in a body-hugging suit with cutout back and short skirt, and Curtis, casually dressed in white shorts, shirt, jacket and Stetson hat, stroll through the crowd. Fans of all ages press near for an autograph, a handshake, even a hug.

“Doesn’t he look great! If I could only look that good at his age,” says Amador Vega, 41, who asks Curtis to autograph photos from his 1956 movie “Trapeze.”

“God has given him grace, style, class, humility and kindness,” says Vega, who lives in Huntington Beach and has been watching Curtis films since boyhood. “He’s a gentleman in the true sense of the word. He shows seniors that they can be vital, healthy and attractive and that with age comes knowledge. He personifies a vibrant, healthy, happy man.”

Helen Fessenden, 86, of Costa Mesa, shuffles through the crowd with the aid of a walker to meet the celebrity.

“Hi, my darling, can I lean down and talk to you?” Curtis asks her.

Fessenden’s face lights up, and she asks Curtis for his autograph. “I saw all of his movies,” she says. “I think it’s very neat that he came and spent his time with a bunch of old people.”

Curtis, who lends his support to numerous charitable causes, says it gives him pleasure to put a smile on other people’s faces. And it soothes his soul. “I just love it. It picks up my spirits. It makes me feel good.”

And that’s a pleasure in a life that, while graced with stardom, has had its measure of pain.

Although he married and divorced four times, he says it was the women he had affairs with in between who gave him the most happiness. He has been free of drug addiction for more than a decade, he says, but struggled long with cocaine.

A year and a half ago, he had heart-bypass surgery; six weeks later his 23-year-old son, Nicolas, died of a heroin overdose.

“That had a terrible effect upon me,” he said. “It just shattered me. I didn’t want to get out of bed. I didn’t want to do anything. It was very difficult for me.”

Curtis, who has five other grown children--including actress Jamie Lee Curtis--said he channeled the loss of his son and his scare with losing his health into positive energy.

Not long after, he met Vanden Berg; they have been together for a year. She is, he says, “the nicest woman I’ve ever met.” Vanden Berg in turn describes Curtis as a good and generous man who deserves the public’s attention and recognition.

Curtis said the 45-year gap in their ages prompts stares of envy from other men.

“When we go into a restaurant, I see these elderly men. I don’t know how to describe them, but they’ve let time get ahold of them and strangle them. . . . Then I walk in with Jill. There’s an awful lot of envy. I can tell and see it because everybody knows how old I am. I used to feel intimidated by it. Now, are you kidding, I feel like King Kong. I take her by the hand and I don’t bat an eye.”

Curtis says he has a stockpile of jokes for people who seem uncomfortable with the age difference. Like the time someone remarked that sex with a younger woman can be fatal. Curtis’ response: “If she dies, she dies!”

Curtis augments his youthful attitude by getting exercise--he walks two miles every other day--and watching what he eats.

Which translates into vegetable sandwiches for lunch, sushi for dinner and only an occasional hot dog. Vanden Berg helps him control his urge to splurge on the wrong foods. “I will never feel old. I will never get old, because I’m not old now. I don’t think like an old man. I don’t feel like an old man,” he says. “If you’ve got spring in your feet and you’re walking around as happy as you can be, then you’re not old.”

Which isn’t to say that his hair hasn’t turned gray or that his physique hasn’t matured . But Curtis, a veteran of more than 100 films, hasn’t lost his screen-star sense of humor or charm.

“I channel all my energy for just the living experience, not projecting myself into the future or dropping myself into the past.

“By avoiding that, I avoid the pitfalls of worrying that my hair is grayer, or my stomach’s a little bigger than it used to be or that my knees ache. . . . I swear to you I feel like a boy and I don’t feel any different than being 11 years old.”