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Sitting across from Tony Curtis is a strange experience. Now 83, the iconic actor is wearing a white T-shirt and skimpy shorts, and sits perched in a wheelchair in the lounge of a swank, downtown Montreal hotel. Age has made him a less recognizable famous figure – but, when Curtis opens his mouth to speak, that low, husky voice is unmistakable.

In town to collect a Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Film Festival, Curtis, the star of such landmark American films as Sweet Smell of Success (1957), The Defiant Ones (1958) and Some Like It Hot (1959), is also talking about his co-written memoir, American Prince, which hits stands this month. As well as telling his tales of working with such masters as Stanley Kubrick, Billy Wilder and Stanley Kramer, the actor delves into his rather troubled personal life, recalling his tormented marriage to Janet Leigh (one of their offspring is actress Jamie Lee Curtis), his working relationship and romance with Marilyn Monroe, the loss of one of his sons to a drug overdose and Curtis's own stint at the Betty Ford Center.

“It's good to be here, to meet people like you,” Curtis says, clutching my hand. The book has provided an exercise in clearing things up, he says. Having lived a crazy existence in Hollywood, filled with numerous lovers and plenty of the sauce, there are volumes of lore surrounding Curtis – some of it fact, some fiction, some a blend of the two.

He confirms that Elvis Presley credited his own hairstyle to Curtis: The greased-back look that culminated with a cresting wave of locks on top was directly lifted from the actor's grooming habit. “I was extremely flattered that Elvis used my look. It was like an Olympic relay race: I handed the style on to him, and he handed it on to another generation of young people.”

Curtis has often been quoted in relation to his affair with Monroe. The two worked together in the comedy Some Like It Hot, in which Curtis donned drag for his role. When some rushes were being screened, some of the technicians working on the film asked Curtis what it was like kissing her. His response: “Kissing Marilyn was like kissing Adolf Hitler.” Naturally, the quote stuck in people's minds. He now explains that he was dumbfounded by such a silly question. “Of course Marilyn was amazing to kiss,” he says. “I was making a joke.”

Curtis goes on to discuss some of his time with Monroe in detail: “I had a lot of fun with Marilyn. A friend of mine had this house on the beach, and I would take her there, and we would make love on the beach. We would get hamburgers and steak to cook, and then we'd build a fire. Because Marilyn knew I might screw up the steak, we had the hamburgers to fall back on. We were in love with each other. She learned about men with me and I learned about women from her.”

And Curtis recalls that Monroe had a tremendous sense of humour. “During the shoot of Some Like It Hot, someone told her that I had a better-looking ass than she did. She looked at him, unbuttoned her blouse and said, ‘He doesn't have [breasts] like these'”

If there is a role Curtis holds dear above all others, he says he would have to point to Sweet Smell of Success, the searing indictment of certain strains of American journalism, co-written by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman. “I was able to bring a lot of my own emotions to that role. I think you have to somehow take on a role like that without overloading yourself. You can't relive an emotion. An emotion should be called only because you're able to use it once. A shock – the first time you have one, it's an emotion. The second time you do it, it's not. It's about acting in the moment, which I was able to do with Sweet Smell of Success.”

He is quick to add that he also loved working with Richard Fleischer, the director of The Boston Strangler (1968), in which Curtis got to play a serial killer. “Richard was extremely considerate and always gave the actor a lot of freedom in their role.”

And working with Kubrick, widely regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers who ever lived? “Stanley and I both grew up in New York, so we understood each other in a certain way. What always got me about Stanley was how perceptive he was. You could walk down the street with him, and he'd see things that you would never notice. He picked up on the strangest things – it was part of what made him such a brilliant director.”

Curtis found himself in an odd position in 2005, when he was widely quoted as blasting Brokeback Mountain, apparently taking offence at the notion of “gay cowboys.” He insists now that he was widely misquoted. “I never said that I didn't like the film. I just didn't know what the big deal was. To see two guys falling in love? … People didn't want to see the subtleties unfold.”

Curtis now says he loves his gay fans, and says he worked with many gay men in Hollywood over the years, including director Vincente Minnelli. And he says he loved the references to his work in the teen comedy Clueless (1995), in which star Alicia Silverstone realizes the boy she is pining over is gay, in large part because he has rented a series of Tony Curtis movies. “I loved that” he says.

“I've always had great, profound friendships with gay men.”

But Curtis closes the interview with a colourful assertion of his heterosexuality, insisting that one of his favourite pastimes has always been, and still is, making love to women. (Curtis is currently married to his sixth wife, Jill Vandenberg Curtis; they wed in 1998.) It's a fitting end to a conversation with Curtis, as this Hollywood legend has clearly had as storied an off-screen existence as any of the characters he has portrayed on the big screen.

Special to The Globe and Mail