Hi °C | Lo °C 
He was the man who will always be remembered for turning the Ulster airwaves blue.
Tony Curtis died aged 85 on Wednesday night but he left his mark in more ways than one in Northern Ireland
In May last year BBC journalist William Crawley had no idea that his on air chat with a Hollywood legend would make front page news from New York to Sydney.
Mr Crawley was tasked with interviewing the notoriously unpredictable Curtis.
The actor was being interviewed on the BBC to promote his new book ahead of a publicity visit to Belfast.
He was in Harrods in London at a book signing when the BBC telephoned him to begin their interview.
Mr Crawley told the Belfast Telegraph yesterday: “Before the interview, a producer from Talkbalk spoke to his publicist and briefed him. Tony was clearly told the interview was going to be live.
“When we started talking there was so much going on around him, I think he got carried away.
“He had been talking with amazing candour. I remember partly thinking ‘be careful where this goes next’.”
What happened next is now fondly remembered as quintessentially Tony Curtis.
Mr Crawley opened his interview by asking Curtis how he came to liken the love scene with Monroe in Some Like It Hot to “kissing Hitler”.
Curtis told how it was a private, off-the-cuff remark while under pressure on the film set.
Then he said: “And you know what, some b******s go away and make that a headline.”
The presenter, embarrassed by the swearing, told listeners: “I must apologise for that little bit of Hollywood realism.”
During the May 2009 interview Mr Crawley then asked Curtis about his Oscar nomination for his role in The Defiant Ones.
“They nominated Sidney (Poitier) and I for the same part in that film, and that was bull****, I was offended by that,” Curtis replied.
The BBC presenter was forced to issue a second apology for “yet more Hollywood realism”.
Curtis then continued: “I became an avid anti-Oscar person after that and I still am to this day. I think it is unfair the way they treat actors in that town... they can f*** off.”
