Jamie Lee Curtis Biography

Jamie Lee Curtis (born November 22, 1958), known under British law as The Right Honourable Jamie Lee, Baroness Haden-Guest, is an American film actress. Although she was initially known as a "scream queen", because of her starring roles in many horror films early in her career, Curtis has since compiled a body of work that covers every genre.

Curtis was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of well-known actors Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh; her paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Hungary. Her parents divorced in 1962 and her mother remarried to a Robert Brandt. She has an older sister, Kelly Leigh, who is also an actress, and several half-siblings (all from her father's remarriage), Alexandra, Allegra, and Nicholas Curtis, who died in 1994 of a drug overdose.

In 1975, Curtis moved to the East Coast with her mother, but returned to California in 1976. She attended the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, where she considered majoring in "Drama", but left after a semester in order to pursue an acting career. Universal Studios put her under contract, and she starred in the television series, Operation Petticoat.

Curtis made her film debut in the 1978 horror film, Halloween, playing the role of Laurie Strode, the only teenage character in the film who is not killed. The film was a major success and was considered the highest grossing independent film of its time. Curtis was subsequently cast in several horror films, which led to her association with the horror genre, garnering her the title of a "scream queen".

Her first follow-up to Halloween was the horror film, The Fog, which was directed by "Halloween" director John Carpenter. The film opened in February 1980 to mixed reviews but strong box office, further cementing Curtis as a horror film starlet. Her next film, Prom Night, was a low-budget Canadian slasher film and was released in July 1980. The film was considered similar in style to "Halloween", and received negative reviews which marked it as a disposable entry in the then active "slasher film" genre. That year, Curtis also starred in Terror Train, which opened in October and received a negative reaction akin to "Prom Night". Both films performed only moderately at the box office. Curtis had a similar function in both films - playing the main character whose friends are murdered, and who is practically the only protagonist to survive. Film critic Roger Ebert, who had given negative reviews to all three of Curtis' 1980 films, said that Curtis "is to the current horror film glut what Christopher Lee was to the last one-or Boris Karloff was in the 1930s."

Curtis later appeared in Halloween II, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later and Halloween: Resurrection. Her recent successful film roles for Curtis have included Disney's Freaky Friday (2003), opposite Lindsay Lohan. The movie was filmed at Palisades High School in Pacific Palisades, CA, near where Curtis and Guest make their home with their children. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy in this movie. She had previously won the said award for her work in the movie True Lies.

Curtis married actor Christopher Guest on December 18, 1984, becoming Lady Haden-Guest when her husband inherited the Barony of Haden-Guest in 1996, upon the death of his father. The couple have two adopted children, Annie (born 1986) and Thomas (born 1996).

Today, Curtis also takes time to support various philanthropic groups. She was Guest of Honor at the 11th annual Gala and Fundraiser in 2003 for Women in Recovery, Inc., a Venice, CA-based non-profit organization offering a live-in, twelve-step program of rehabilitation for women in need. Past Honorees of this organization have included Sir Anthony Hopkins; the 2005 honoree was Angela Lansbury.