Jamie Lee Curtis
Birthdate: Nov 22, 1958
Birthplace: Los Angeles, California, USA
Forever associated with the Halloween franchise created by writer-director John Carpenter, with whom she created the character of Laurie Strode in the original Halloween (1978), Jamie Lee Curtis is perhaps the ultimate “Scream Queen.” (Not coincidentally, one of Curtis’ three directorial credits is for an episode of the Fox TV series titled Scream Queens, in which she gained one of seven Golden Globe acting nominations.) The daughter of Hollywood mega-couple Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, Jamie Lee Curtis quickly jumped from minor TV guest roles to a memorable run of movies with Carpenter, starting with her debut in Halloween.
She starred or co-starred in Carpenter’s The Fog (1980), Halloween II (1981), and Escape from New York (1981), with Kurt Russell, while furthering her specialty in horror in such vehicles as Roger Spottiswoode’s Terror Train (1980) and Richard Franklin’s Road Games (1981) with Stacy Keach. Curtis expanded her range in wide-release studio comedies such as Trading Places (1983), with Eddie Murphy, indie and studio dramas such as James Bridges’ Perfect (1985), paired with John Travolta, Mike Newell’s Amazing Grace and Chuck (1987), with Gregory Peck, and Dominick and Eugene (1988).
By the start of the 1990s, Jamie Lee Curtis had established herself as a solid female lead and ensemble player, starting with John Cleese’s beloved hit, A Fish Called Wanda (1988), and then switching gears as a female cop in Kathryn Bigelow’s Blue Steel (1990). This proved the pattern of Curtis’ choices of roles, alternating such indie ensembles as Queens Logic (1991) with high-profile studio projects like James Cameron’s True Lies (1994) while collaborating again with Cleese on the 1997 comedy, Fierce Creatures and prestige dramas such as John Boorman’s adaptation of John le Carré’s The Tailor of Panama (2001) with Pierce Brosnan and Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush.
After her turn in the hit comedy, Freaky Friday (2003), with Lindsay Lohan, Jamie Lee Curtis--like too many other female actors--began to see starring and co-starring roles fade away as she shifted into supporting and guest roles in TV and film. The exception was the Halloween franchise (five more, apparently culminating with Halloween Ends (2022), even though her string of face-offs with the ubiquitous Michael Myers became increasingly ludicrous.
In recent years, however, Curtis has found a fresh angle on her skills as an ensemble actor, first in Rian Johnson’s hit murder mystery comedy, Knives Out (2019), and in Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) with Michelle Yeoh. Curtis is in the works on her first film as writer-director, the environmental thriller, Mother Nature (date yet to be announced), as well as supporting turns in Disney’s long-in-gestation but commercially disappointing horror comedy, Haunted Mansion (2023), with LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, Rosario Dawson and Jared Leto under Justin Simien’s direction; in Eli Roth’s Borderlands (2022), co-starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Edgar Ramirez and Gina Gershon, but proving a bomb for distributor Lionsgate with a $33 million return (against $120 million costs). In director-producer Gia Coppola’s Vegas drama, The Last Showgirl (2024), starring Pamela Anderson, Kiernan Shipka, Brenda Song, Billie Lourd, and Dave Bautista, delivered a fine $7 million return for its Roadside Attractions release.
Curtis had her first co-starring role in three years in another sequel (for which she was also a lead producer), the Disney-produced and distributed comedy Freakier Friday (2025), co-starring Lindsay Lohan, with Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, Manny Jacinto, and Mark Harmon under the direction of Nisha Ganatra. Curtis developed and produced (with producer Jason Blum) director/co-writer Paul Greengrass’s The Lost Bus (2025) the survival drama based on Lizzie Johnson’s 2021 book, Paradise, about the disastrous Paradise, Calif., fire, starring Matthew McConaughey, America Ferrera, Yul Vazquez and Ashlie Atkinson, premiering at the Toronto Film Festival and released by Apple Studios/Apple TV+.
Jamie Lee Curtis co-starred with Emma Mackey, Woody Harrelson, Kumail Nanjiani, Ayo Edebiri, Albert Brooks, Jack Lowden, Rebecca Hall, Julie Kavner, and Troy Garity in director/writer/producer James L. Brooks’s comedy-drama, Ella McKay (2025), produced by Gracie Films and released by 20th Century Studios. Curtis also co-starred in and was a lead producer on director/writer/executive producer Russell Goldman’s horror comedy-drama, Sender (date to be announced), with David Dastmalchian, Britt Lower, and Anna Baryshnikov.
Curtis starred in director/co-writer/producer/art director/stunt director/actor Gabriel Schmidt’s Spychosis (date to be announced), co-starring John Savage, Max Amini, Jimmy Scanlon, Gene Loveland, and Shauna Chin, produced and written by Gene Loveland and Tom Arnold.
Jamie Lee Curtis Photos and Videos
Personal life
Jamie Lee Curtis was born in Santa Monica to actors Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. Curtis has one sister, actor Kelly Lee Curtis, and one half-sister, actor and businesswoman Allegra Curtis, with whom Jamie and Kelly share a father, Tony Curtis. She is married to writer-director-actor Christopher Guest. They have a pair of adopted daughters, Ruby and Annie.
Awards
Winner, Best Supporting Actress, BAFTA Awards (1983); Winner, Best Actress in a Television Series, Golden Globe Awards (1990); Winner, Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical, Golden Globe Awards (1995); Hollywood Walk of Fame (1998); Lifetime Achievement Award, Venice International Film Festival (2021).
BAFTA Film Award
BAFTA Awards
BAFTA Film Award
BAFTA Awards
Golden Globe
Golden Globes, USA
Jamie Lee Curtis Movies
actor
Upcoming (1)
- 2025 |
Ella McCay
asHelen McCay
An idealistic young woman juggles her family and work life in a comedy about the people you love and how to survive them.
Previous (53)
- 2025 |
Freakier Friday
asTess Coleman
22 years after Tess and Anna endured an identity crisis, Anna now has a daughter and a soon-to-be stepdaughter. As they navigate the challenges that come when two families merge, Tess and Anna discover that lightning might strike twice.
- 2024 | Dinner Party Diaries with José Andrés
- 2024 |
The Last Showgirl
asAnnette
A seasoned showgirl must plan for her future when her show abruptly closes after a 30-year run.
- 2024 |
Borderlands
An infamous bounty hunter returns to her childhood home, the chaotic planet Pandora, and forms an unlikely alliance with a team of misfits to find the missing daughter of the most powerful man in the universe.
- 2023 |
Haunted Mansion
asMadame Leota
A single mom named Gabbie hires a tour guide, a psychic, a priest and a historian to help exorcise her newly bought mansion after discovering it is inhabited by ghosts.
- 2022 | Eddie Murphy: As Himself
- 2022 | Magnolia's Hope
- 2022 |
Halloween Ends
asLaurie
The plot follows the outcast Corey Cunningham who falls in love with Laurie Strode's granddaughter while a series of events, including crossing paths with Michael Myers, drives him to become a serial killer.
- 2022 |
Everything Everywhere All at Once
asDeirdre Beaubeirdre
Everything Everywhere All at Once
A middle-aged Chinese immigrant is swept up into an insane adventure in which she alone can save existence by exploring other universes and connecting with the lives she could have led.
- 2021 | Senior Entourage
- 2021 |
Halloween Kills
asLaurie Strode
Surviving victims of Michael Myers form a vigilante mob and vow to end his reign of terror.
- 2019 |
Knives Out
asLinda Drysdale
When renowned crime novelist Harlan Thrombey is found dead at his estate just after his 85th birthday, the inquisitive and debonair Detective Benoit Blanc is mysteriously enlisted to investigate.
- 2019 |
An Acceptable Loss
asRachel
Libby teaches at a university but 4 years ago she was top aide to VP Rachel and was part of a total victory action. Rachel is now US president and worried about Libby keeping quiet. Libby also has a student spying on her.
- 2018 | The Shape Lives: 40 Years of Halloween
- 2018 |
- 2017 | Tax Shelter Terrors
- 2015 | Spare Parts
- 2011 | The Little Engine That Could
- 2010 | You Again
- 2008 | Beverly Hills Chihuahua
- 2004 | Christmas with the Kranks
- 2009 | Dirt! The Movie
- 2003 | Freaky Friday
- 2003 |
Freaky Friday
asTess Coleman
Tess and her daughter, Anna, do not get along. However, things take a turn when, in a freak incident, they switch bodies and are forced to live each other's lives.
- 2002 | Halloween: Resurrection
- 2001 | The Tailor of Panama
- 2000 | Drowning Mona
- 1999 | Virus
- 1998 | Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
- 1997 | Fierce Creatures
- 1996 | House Arrest
- 1994 |
- 1993 | Mother's Boys
- 1994 | My Girl 2
- 1992 | Forever Young
- 1991 | My Girl
- 1991 | Queens Logic
- 1990 | Blue Steel
- 1988 | A Fish Called Wanda
- 1988 | Dominick and Eugene
- 1987 | A Man in Love
- 1987 | Amazing Grace and Chuck
- 1985 | Perfect
- 1984 | Grandview, U.S.A.
- 1983 | Love Letters
- 1981 | Road Games
- 1981 | Halloween II
- 1980 | Terror Train
- 1980 |
Terror Train
asAlana
Three years after a prank went terribly awry, the six college students responsible are targeted by a masked killer at a New Year's Eve party aboard a moving train.
- 1980 | Prom Night
- 1980 | The Fog
- 1980 |
- 1978 |
Facts About Jamie Lee Curtis
Baroness: Jamie Lee Curtis can claim, but does not use, the title of Baroness Haden-Guest of Saling in Essex, since her husband Christopher Guest is a baron in the Haden-Guest British family line.
Get Your Man: Five months after first spotting Christopher Guest’s face in Rolling Stone magazine during the release of This is Spinal Tap, Curtis married him.
Kid Lit: Curtis is the best-selling author of 13 children’s books, including the New York Times best-seller, Today I Feel Silly, and Other Moods That Make My Day (1998).
Recovering: Jamie Lee Curtis considers her greatest achievement not to be her screen performances or books, but her recovery from her addictions to alcohol and painkillers.
Activist Theater: She joined actors Brad Pitt and Martin Sheen in a staged reading in Los Angeles of Dustin Lance Black’s play, 8, dramatizing the trial which overturned the California same-sex marriage ban.
Inventor: Jamie Lee Curtis invented a baby diaper with a moisture-proof pocket containing wipes, and has two patents for the item. She refused the diaper to be marketed until diaper manufacturers devised a biodegradable diaper.
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