The youngest daughter of actors Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, Curtis made her screen debut in a 1977 episode of the television drama Quincy, M.E.. Her film debut came with the role of Laurie Strode in John Carpenter's horror Halloween (1978); the role proved to be Curtis' breakthrough and established her as a prominent scream queen.
Her subsequent horror roles have included The Fog, Prom Night, and Terror Train (all 1980), as well as six sequels from the Halloween franchise, concluding with Halloween Ends (2022). She also gained brief recognition as a sex symbol following her role as a fitness instructor in Perfect (1985) and won her first Golden Globe for the sitcom Anything but Love (1989โ1992).
Curtis' most successful roles outside of the horror genre have been in the comedies Trading Places (1983), True Lies (1994), and Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022); these respectively earned her BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Academy Award wins. Her other film credits include A Fish Called Wanda (1988), Blue Steel (1990), My Girl (1991), The Tailor of Panama (2001), Freaky Friday (2003), Christmas with the Kranks (2004), Knives Out (2019), The Last Showgirl (2024), and Freakier Friday (2025).
Curtis earned her first Emmy nomination for the television film Nicholas' Gift (1998), and later won Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for the FX series The Bear (2022โ2026). She also acted in the satirical slasher series Scream Queens (2015โ2016). Curtis has written multiple children's books that have made The New York Times's best-seller list.
Early life
Jamie Lee Curtis was born on November 22, 1958, in Santa Monica, California, to actors Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. Her father was Jewish, a son of emigrants from Mรกtรฉszalka, Hungary. Her mother was of Danish, German, and Scotch-Irish descent. She had an older sister, actress Kelly Curtis (1956-2026), and four half-siblings from her father's later marriages including actress Allegra Curtis.
Curtis's parents divorced in 1962. She has stated that, after the divorce, her father was "not around" and that he was "not interested in being a father". After her father's death, she learned that she and her siblings had all been cut out of his will. Her mother married stockbroker Robert Brandt, who helped raise her.
Curtis attended the elite Harvard-Westlake School and Beverly Hills High School in Los Angeles, and graduated in 1976 from Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Connecticut. Returning to California in 1976, she studied law at her mother's alma materโUniversity of the Pacific in Stockton, Californiaโbut dropped out after one semester to pursue an acting career.
Career
1970s: Early television roles and breakthrough with Halloween
Curtis made her television debut in a 1977 episode of the drama series Quincy, M.E.. She went on to guest star on several series, including The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, Columbo, Charlie's Angels, The Love Boat, and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. She appeared as Nurse Lt.
Barbara Duran in the short-lived comedy series Operation Petticoat (1977โ1978), based on the 1959 film that starred her father, Tony Curtis. Curtis was also a game show panelist on several episodes of Match Game.
Her film debut occurred in John Carpenter's 1978 horror film Halloween, in which she played the role of Laurie Strode. The producer, Debra Hill, specifically cast Curtis because her mother, Janet Leigh, had been known as a horror icon due to her Oscar-nominated performance in Psycho. The film was a major success and was considered the highest-grossing independent film of its time, earning accolades as a classic horror film.
1980s: Scream queen and established actress
After the major critical and commercial success of Halloween, Curtis was cast in several horror films, garnering her a reputation as a scream queen. Her next film following Halloween was The Fog, which was also directed by Carpenter and produced by Hill. The film opened in February 1980 to mixed reviews but strong box office, starting Curtis as a horror film starlet.
In the years since its release, the film has achieved critical reappraisal and developed a cult following. Her next film, Prom Night, was a low-budget Canadian slasher film released in July 1980. The film, for which she earned a Genie Award nomination for Best Performance by a Foreign Actress, was similar in style to Halloween, yet received negative reviews which marked it as a disposable entry in the then-popular slasher genre.
That year, Curtis also starred in Terror Train, which opened in October and met with negative reviews akin to Prom Night. Both films performed moderately well at the box office. Curtis's roles in the latter two films served a similar function to that of Strodeโthe main character whose friends are murdered and is practically the only protagonist to survive.
Film critic Roger Ebert, who gave negative reviews to all three of Curtis's 1980 films, said that Curtis "is to the current horror film glut what Christopher Lee was to the last oneโor Boris Karloff was in the 1930s."
In 1981, she appeared alongside Stacey Keach in the Australian thriller film Roadgames, directed by Carpenter's friend Richard Franklin; her importation, which was requested by the film's American distributor AVCO Embassy Pictures, was contested by the Sydney branch of Actors Equity. Although the film was a box office bomb in Australia and Franklin later regretted not increasing the size of Curtis's role, it has achieved a cult following and was championed by Quentin Tarantino.
That same year, Curtis reprised her role of Laurie Strode in Halloween II. She starred in the television films Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story, playing the eponymous doomed Playmate, and She's in the Army Now.
Her role as a kindhearted prostitute in 1983's Trading Places helped Curtis shed her horror queen image; the film was a great critical and commercial success and garnered Curtis a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She had previously worked with director John Landis on the documentary Coming Soon.
The studio originally objected to Curtis's casting, as she was primarily associated with horror films: "The casting people all thought [Landis] was crazy, and he single-handedly changed the course of my life by giving me that part", Curtis later stated. The following year, Curtis appeared in the romantic drama film Love Letters and the comedy-drama Grandview, U.S.A..
In 1985, Curtis was cast opposite John Travolta as a workout instructor in the film Perfect. While her role earned her a reputation as a sex symbol, the film was a critical and commercial flop. It has since earned a cult following, and in a 1994 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Quentin Tarantino called the movie "greatly underappreciated." That same year, Curtis starred as Annie Oakley in an episode of Shelley Duvall's Tall Tales & Legends.
In 1986, she starred alongside Bette Davis in the HBO film As Summers Die. She then starred in the 1988 comedy film A Fish Called Wanda, which achieved cult status while showcasing her as a comedic actress. For her performance, she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress โ Motion Picture Comedy or Musical. That same year, Curtis starred in the film Dominick and Eugene alongside Tom Hulce and Ray Liotta.
Her first starring role on television came opposite Richard Lewis in the situation comedy series Anything but Love, which ran for four seasons from 1989 through 1992. For her performance as Hannah Miller, she received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress โ Television Series Musical or Comedy and the People's Choice Award for Favorite Actress in a New TV Series.
1990s: Continued box-office successes
Curtis received positive reviews for her performance in the action thriller Blue Steel (1990), which was directed by Kathryn Bigelow. The following year, she appeared in My Girl, opposite her Trading Places co-star Dan Aykroyd. The film was a great commercial success and was followed by a sequel, My Girl 2, in 1994.
In 1992, Curtis starred alongside Mel Gibson in the romantic fantasy film Forever Young. The following year, she appeared in the psychological thriller Mother's Boys.
Curtis received a Golden Globe Award for her work in the 1994 action-comedy film True Lies, directed by James Cameron. The film was a critical and commercial success, becoming the 3rd highest-grossing film of 1994. Her performance also earned Curtis her first Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. She earned another Golden Globe Award nomination for her work in TNT's adaptation of the Wendy Wasserstein play The Heidi Chronicles (1995).
In 1996, Curtis starred in the family comedy film House Arrest and appeared in an episode of the sitcom The Drew Carey Show.
Curtis appeared in Fierce Creatures in 1997, alongside her three A Fish Called Wanda costars: John Cleese, Kevin Kline, and Michael Palin. While the film was a modest commercial success, grossing $40 million worldwide against a $25 million budget, 53% of critics gave it positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. That same year, Curtis was inducted into the Fangoria Hall of Fame.[citation needed]
In 1998, she starred in the CBS television film Nicholas' Gift, for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination, and reprised her role of Laurie Strode for the third time in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later. That same year, Curtis received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1999, she starred in the science fiction horror film Virus, which was a critical and commercial flop. Curtis has since stated that she regrets starring in the film.
2000s: Decrease in workload and hiatus
In 2000, Curtis was honored with the Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year award and appeared in the crime comedy film Drowning Mona, starring Danny DeVito and Bette Midler. The following year, she starred as Geoffrey Rush's wife in the spy-triller film The Tailor of Panama and appeared in Billy Bob Thornton's Daddy and Them.
Also in 2001, she voiced Queen Camilla in the animated Christmas film Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys. She appeared in Halloween: Resurrection in 2002.
In 2003, Curtis was cast opposite Lindsay Lohan in the Disney comedy film Freaky Friday. The film was shot at Palisades High School in Pacific Palisades, California, near where Curtis and Guest lived with their children. Curtis received praise for her performance; A. O. Scott from The New York Times contended that she "does some of her best work ever", while Entertainment Weekly called her performance "glorious".
Her performance earned her another nomination for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress โ Motion Picture Comedy or Musical. She also received a Grammy Award nomination that same year for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for the audiobook The Jamie Lee Curtis Audio Collection.
In 2004, she starred in the Christmas comedy film Christmas with the Kranks, which was critically derided but a box office success. The following year, she appeared as herself along with her True Lies co-star Arnold Schwarzenegger in the comedy film The Kid & I and hosted the CBS program A Home for the Holidays.
In October 2006, Curtis told Access Hollywood that she had closed the book on her acting career to focus on her family. She briefly returned to acting after being cast in June 2007 in Disney's live-action-animated film Beverly Hills Chihuahua, starring opposite Piper Perabo as one of three live-action characters in the film.
2010s: Return and film resurgence
Curtis began the 2010s with the comedy film You Again, opposite Kristen Bell and Sigourney Weaver. Curtis had voice roles in the animated films The Little Engine That Could (2011) and the English language version of From Up on Poppy Hill (2013).
In 2012, she appeared in five episodes of the military drama series NCIS, playing the role of Dr. Samantha Ryan, a potential romantic interest of Special Agent Gibbs (Mark Harmon). During an interview, she stated that if they could develop a storyline, she would be interested to return to the series, but this never occurred.
The series reunited Curtis with Harmon, after he played her character's fiancรฉ and later husband in the 2003 remake of Freaky Friday. This was followed by supporting roles in the neo-noir mystery film Veronica Mars (2014) and the biographical drama film Spare Parts (2015). In 2016, IndieWire named her one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination (Curtis received her first Academy Award nomination in 2023).
From 2012 to 2018, Curtis had a recurring role as Joan Day, the mother of Zooey Deschanel's character, in the sitcom New Girl. From 2015 to 2016, Curtis had a lead role as Cathy Munsch on the Fox satirical horror comedy series Scream Queens, which aired for two seasons. Curtis filmed an intricate homage to her mother's classic shower scene in Psycho in a season one episode.
For her performance in the first season, Curtis was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress โ Television Series Musical or Comedy and the People's Choice Award for Favorite Actress in a New TV Series. In 2017, Curtis was mentioned by Eminem in Big Sean's song No Favors.
Curtis returned to leading roles with her reprisal of Laurie Strode in the horror sequel film Halloween (2018). The film debuted to $76.2 million, marking the second-best opening weekend of October and the highest opening weekend of the Halloween franchise; and became the biggest domestic grosser in the franchise with its opening weekend alone.
Its opening performance was the best-ever for a film starring a lead actress over 55 years old. Also in 2018, she had a role in the drama film An Acceptable Loss. Her performance earned some positive critical notice; Chicago Sun-Times critic Richard Roeper stated that Curtis "creates a monster so terrifying she'd have Michael Myers turning tail and running away."
In 2019, Curtis appeared as Linda Drysdale-Thrombrey, the eldest daughter of novelist Harlan Thrombey (played by Christopher Plummer) in Rian Johnson's mystery film Knives Out, which earned positive reviews and over $300 million at the global box office. The film was chosen by the American Film Institute, the National Board of Review, and Time magazine as one of the top ten films of 2019 in each respective list.
2020s: Awards success and beyond
In September 2021, she was honored with the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for her lifetime achievements. Also in 2021, Curtis received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement during the 78th Venice International Film Festival and said, "I feel so alive, like I'm this 14-year-old person just beginning their life.
That's how I wake up every day with that sort of joy and purpose. I'm just beginning my work." Curtis again reprised her role as Laurie Strode in the horror sequels Halloween Kills, which was released in October 2021, and in Halloween Ends, which was released in October 2022. Her performance in each film earned her People's Choice Award nominations for Drama Movie Star. Halloween Ends marked Curtis's final time portraying Laurie Strode.
She also was honored with a handprint ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theater on October 12, 2022. Curtis's close friends Melanie Griffith and Arnold Schwarzenegger both honored her with speeches at the ceremony.
