Jamie Lee Gets Hasty Pudding
Jamie Lee Curtis spent the day Thursday in Cambridge, Mass., waving to crowds from the back of a convertible as she was paraded through the streets, surrounded by men in drag.
Of course, it could only be the annual Woman of the Year ceremony, as observed by Harvard University's Hasty Pudding Theatricals. Curtis, as well as six cast members of the Hasty Pudding production The Jewel of Denial, spoke to Early Show Anchor Bryant Gumbel before the festivities started.
"I think people in show business take themselves way too seriously," said Curtis, adding, "This is one of those great sort of dubious achievements. Obviously, there's a lovely tradition behind it and yet, at the same time, it's guys in drag."
Curtis quipped that she is accustomed to guys in drag, since her father, Tony Curtis, starred in the Billy Wilder comedy Some Like It Hot, in which he and Jack Lemmon played a couple of musicians who dress in women's clothing to escape death at the hands of gangsters.
"This is basically how I was raised," she deadpanned. "Just think about it. Some Like It Hot. This is (how) by dad came over every morning for coffee. This isn't a big deal."
And she was all set to wave at the crowds during the parade.
"Don't forget that my husband is Lord Haden-Guest in England. I did practice my wave," she said.
Curtis' husband, Christopher Guest, inherited his father's title of Baron in 1996. So Curtis is also Lady Haden-Guest.
The Hasty Pudding Society honors "performers who have made a lasting and impressive contribution to the world of entertainment," which Curtis admitted is "a very heady statement."
And then she launched into a monologue of comic self-deprecation:
"Since this day is about ME, I have told everybody in the room that the only way they can discuss anything is how it relates to ME. I think, by the end of this day, where I have had this sort of like elevation of my ego, I'm going to get back on the airplane, serve the coffee, scrub the toilet as I fly back home, basically give pedicures to everybody on the plane, just to get my ego back in check. So when I get home and my daughter says, 'Mom, make me a burger,' I'll go, 'OK,' rather than, 'Excuse me? I'm the Woman of the Year!'"
She admitted that it was pretty nice to be surrounded by a bunch of good-looking college guys.
"I'm 42 this year," said the actress, "And I'm going be surrounded by some beautiful young men, and women, by the way. What can I say? I actually feel great, which is, from my background, a big thing for me to say. I'm feeling great."
She has also written four children's books. But she has her own idea of what has been her biggest achievement: "I was on Match Game. I won somebody $25,000 on Pyramid. I believe I am the first Woman of the Year who has actually won somebody $25,000 on the Pyramid."
She hasn't been jumpig at movie offers lately, preferring instead to focus on her two children, Annie, 13, and Tom, 4. But she is appearing in a new movie, Drowning Mona, with Bette Midler and Danny DeVito, set for release in early March.