Random Delightful Things You Didn't Know About Jamie Lee Curtis (20 items)

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  (#1) She Carried On Her Mom's Horror Film Legacy

  Well-known for her horror roles in the '70s and '80s, Jamie Lee Curtis didn't come by her "Scream Queen" nickname accidentally. Curtis was born into an established Hollywood family, and her mother, Janet Leigh, played one of cinema's most iconic film characters: Marion Crane in Psycho.

  Curtis inherited Leigh's talent for terror and went on to make a name for herself as the star of the Halloween franchise. Recently, she re-created her mother's iconic Psycho scene for the television show Scream Queens, bringing things full circle.
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  (#2) She's Jake Gyllenhaal's Godmother

  Jake Gyllenhaal is blessed not only with great hair, great looks, and an impressively difficult-to-spell name, he's also got one of the coolest godmothers on earth. Jamie Lee Curtis, who remains close friends with Gyllenhaal's parents, Stephen and Naomi, holds that honor.

  Though she may seem larger than life, Curtis is no fairy godmother. She told Entertainment Weekly that "when [Gyllenhaal] actually started show business, I said, 'Look, I'm your celebrity godmother.'"
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  (#3) She Is Married To Christopher Guest

  Jamie Lee Curtis may be an artist in her own right, but she also married one. Curtis married Christopher Guest in 1984, the same year he starred in the hit mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap.

  More interestingly, Curtis picked her husband out of a magazine. As Guest tells it:

  There were pictures in Rolling Stone magazine in 1984. One of me as Nigel Tufnel and one of me as me. And that was the one where she said to her friend, "I'm going to marry that guy."

  So, she's also true to her word.
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  (#4) She's Best Buds With Sigourney Weaver

  Both Jamie Lee Curtis and Sigourney Weaver are tall, brunette, and beautiful, so it's no surprise they often go up for the same roles. Lesser people might let that competition make them bitter enemies. But for Weaver and Curtis, it has blossomed into a great friendship.

  The two actors starred in a film together in 2010 called You Again, where they played rivals. But the resulting friendship has been nothing but laughs both on- and off-screen.
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  (#5) She Loves 'World Of Warcraft'

  You might think being Hollywood royalty is all glitz and glamour, but apparently it also comes with some leisure time for video games. Curtis is a huge fan of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft.

  It's a passion she shares with her son, Thomas Guest, and the pair even dressed up as an orc duo for the premiere of the Warcraft film.
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  (#6) She And Her Husband Have Titles, But They're Chill About It

  Jamie Lee Curtis, whose husband, Christopher Guest, is the 5th Baron Haden-Guest, is technically royalty. When Guest's father died, the couple inherited the titles. Formally, she is known as Baroness Haden-Guest. But the couple don't let it go to their heads.

  As Guest, the lord of his family's manor, told The Guardian: "I'm Lord Haden-Guest. And yes, that's a novelty. Born into it by accident, obviously. And then your dad dies and you're the next one."
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  (#7) Her Legs Were Insured

  Jamie Lee Curtis is known for her tall, athletic physique. And in the '90s, that physique paid off well beyond the silver screen. Pantyhose company L'eggs made Curtis the star of their ad campaign, and her stems became a precious commodity.

  At the time, Curtis's legs were insured for $1 million.
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  (#8) She Holds Two Diaper Patents

  Curtis holds a patent on a special kind of diaper she invented to help busy moms pack lighter. The diaper has a moisture-proof pouch that holds wipes for on-the-go diaper changes. Curtis told NPR:

  It's called Dipe and Wipes. So when - before you take off the diaper, you peel off the tape, reach in, pull out the wipes, undo the diaper, check out whatever's going on, take the wipes, boom, boom, boom, Bob's your uncle, done.

  She holds another patent relating to disposable diapers that contain a plastic bag and can be wrapped up easily.
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  (#9) She's Been Sober Since 1999

  Curtis battled addiction to opioids for years, which she wrote about for the Huffington Post after the death of Prince. "I too, sought to kill emotional and physical pain with pain killers," she said. Luckily, the actor has overcome her addiction and been sober for almost two decades.

  She's rightfully proud of her accomplishment, writing, "My recovery from drug addiction is the single greatest accomplishment of my life."
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  (#10) She's A Blogger For The Huffington Post

  Jamie Lee Curtis is not just an actor, but a widely read writer. She blogs for the Huffington Post on everything from her personal struggles with addiction to her own experience with the #MeToo movement.

  The actor uses the platform to both open up about her struggles and provide commentary on current events.
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  (#11) She's An Expert Organizer

  Curtis is known as something of an expert when it comes to organization, and she prides herself on her skills. Good Housekeeping toured Curtis's home, and it's exceptionally orderly. She told the magazine, "I've created a system that allows me the brain time to disengage from what I call the custodial part of mothering and being a wife."

  Curtis even has what she describes as a "soup freezer file," where she stores flat, frozen plastic bags of soup, arranged vertically.
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  (#12) Curtis Is Her Adopted Last Name

  Jamie Lee Curtis is the daughter of legendary Hollywood actor Tony Curtis. Though her father was born Bernard Schwartz, studio executives told him Schwartz sounded "too Jewish," and thus was born Tony Curtis. Rather than take Schwartz, Jamie Lee adopted Tony's stage name as her own.

  Jamie Lee continues to use the name Curtis, but her relationship with her father was never that close. She opened up after his death, saying, "He did what he was supposed to do from a financial standpoint, which was honorable of him, but he was not an involved father."
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  (#13) She's Published Multiple Children's Books

  Curtis is an accomplished writer - she works not only as an occasional blogger for the Huffington Post, but she's also a published author. The actor writes children's books, though it wasn't exactly a path she saw herself pursuing. As she mentioned at an industry event, "I never thought I'd write a book in my life. I got 840 on my SATs - combined."

  Watching her daughter grow inspired Curtis to begin writing. In the past 15 years, Curtis has written nearly a dozen children's books on everything from moods to moms.
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  (#14) She Started Her Own Production Company In 1981

  After her success in 1978's Halloween, Curtis struggled to find work. As a result, in 1981, Curtis, her sister Kelly Lee Curtis, and her mother Janet Leigh, started their own production company called Generation Productions.  

  Generation Productions was inspired by John Carpenter's Whitebread Productions, which he created for the purpose developing his own feature films. Curtis was also heavily influenced by Debra Hill who, at that point, had already distributed several films via her own production company. 

  The point of Generation Productions was to write scripts that Curtis and her mother could star in together. Unfortunately, no such project came to fruition. 
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  (#15) She Wrote A 20-Page Treatment Called 'The Myth'

  In 1981, Curtis wrote a story called The Myth which she hoped to turn into her directorial debut via her personal distribution company, Generation Productions. The Myth existed as part of a 20-page treatment and told the story of several natural disasters occurring all at once. 

  Curtis describes The Myth as a disaster film and says she wanted to produce it with her company. She even took a cinematography class at UCLA and thought it could have "been made as a Roger Corman movie" if not with Generation. 

  The script never made it past the treatment stage, however, and Curtis remains a notable actress as opposed to a legendary horror director. 
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  (#16) John Landis

  • Producer/Director

  Landis first met Curtis when she narrated his documentary short on ’50s horror movie trailers titled Coming Soon, and the two hit it off. Landis immediately took to the snarky actress and thought she would be perfect for an upcoming feature he was directing. In an interview with Birth Movies Death, Curtis recalled: 

  Clearly, I made him laugh a few times because it was John Landis who single-handedly told Paramount that he was going to cast *me* in the only female part in a very big-budget Paramount comedy starring Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd.

  The director of Trading Places had to fight with studio execs to cast the scream queen. The studio's top brass didn't believe Curtis had the chops for comedy, much less to play one of the leads. But Landis stood his ground, and because of that, Curtis was able to make the leap from horror to comedy.

  I know that there was blowback. I know it, I've read it, they told him, 'No. What are you crazy? No, no, no, no, no, we're going to put somebody else in it.' He was like, 'No, I'm going to put this girl in it.' And he wouldn't have known me, and I never would have known him had it not been for horror movies, because it was that short that I did for him that he then went, 'Oh no, she's funny. I'm going to put her in Trading Places.' That's why I'm in it. 
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  (#17) She Would Use Her Kids As An Excuse To Cancel Plans 

  Sometimes living the life of a celebrity is exhausting. Parties, galas, shindigs...it can all get a bit much when all you want to do is Netflix & Chill.

  While on the The Late Late Show with James Corden, the Knives Out actress confessed that she would use her kids to excuse herself from set engagements.  

  My favorite dinner party is one that gets canceled an hour before I have to be there. It's glorious... It's the reason to have children, because you can immediately blame it on them. You know, 'They have diarrhea,' and then right away, they don't want you to come. They really don't want you to come.
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  (#18) She Scares Easily And Won't Go See Scary Movies

  Despite her status as one of the top scream queens of all time, Curtis is terrified of scary movies and refuses to watch them.

  I scare easily—I have since I was a child. Loud noises scare me, suspense music scares me. There’s not a movie that my friends haven’t all said, 'Oh, I’m going to go see this movie,' and then they look at me and they say, 'But you can’t go.'
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  (#19) Columbo

  • TV Program

  Prior to being chased by a knife-wielding maniac, 18-year-old Curtis played a surly waitress in an  episode of Columbo titled "The Bye-Bye Sky High IQ Murder Case." 

  Apparently, getting gigs on the small screen mystery series was a family tradition, as her mother Janet Leigh played a killer on the show two years prior.
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  (#20) Her Sister Kelly Played Muffy In 'Trading Places'

  Older sis Kelly Curtis is an actress in her own right, as well as a director.

  When Jamie nabbed the lead in Trading Places, Kelly got a cameo as country club snob and headband aficionado Muffy, who mocked Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) when he was down on his luck. 

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