American actress Jamie Lee Curtis (64), who rose to international fame with her role as final girl Laurie Strode in John Carpenter’s Halloween franchise. The part established Curtis as a scream queen — a title she’s upheld in the years post — and led to a string of successful supernatural and slasher horrors such as The Fog (1980), Prom Night (1980) and Terror Train (1980). In her later years, Curtis reprised her role as Laurie in David Gordon Green’s reboot of the Halloween franchise, officially ending her almost 45-year-run as Strode in Halloween Ends (2022). Outside of the horror genre, Curtis has found fame in various comedies, such as A Fish Called Wanda (1988), Christmas with the Kranks (2004), Drowning Mona (2000) and Freaky Friday (2003). Aside from being a scream queen, Curtis also became a sex symbol for portraying Jessie Wilson in Perfect (1985). In more recent years, Curtis won over modern audiences as Linda Drysdale in Knives Out (2019) and Deirdre Beaubeirdre in the award-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022).
The daughter of Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, Jamie Lee is of Danish, German, and Scotch-Irish descent. She found everlasting love and embraced motherhood for herself in the ’80s. Before she met her now-husband, however, Curtis had another short fling with a beloved British icon.
Prior to marrying Christopher Guest, Curtis dated British singer Adam Ant in 1983 Adam Ant for “about a year”
Communicated on Curtis’ own Instagram (see below), she had a short-lived relationship with British rock singer Adam Ant in 1983. Real name Stuart Leslie Goddard rose to prominence as the main singer of Adam and the Ants and later found success as a solo artist. Curtis mentions that they dated “during his tax exile” and details how he went to London and gifted her with clothes from Vivienne Westwood. Their relationship fizzled out soon enough, but as far as we can tell, the pair have remained friends and share no ill-will. Ant, who’s now 68 years old himself, married Lorraine Gibson in 1997, with whom he shares a daughter, but the couple divorced in 2004.
Curtis encounters Christopher Guest in 1984 during his The Spinal Tap era and marries him five months later
For Interview Magazine, in which she informally interviews her friend Sigourney Weaver, Curtis (in her own words) describes how she met Guest and the emotions she felt when she first laid eyes on him. Not in a coffee shop, mind you, where you’d expect most couples to meet, no. Instead, Curtis was drooling over an image of Guest in the Rolling Stone magazine. Curtis mentions how she fawned over Guest, even chasing her crush so far as to leave her phone number with his agency — but he never called. Fate took its course, however, like it always seems to.
“I married Chris five months after seeing his picture in Rolling Stone. I said out loud to my friend, the late, great Debra Hill, “Oh, I’m going to marry that guy.” It was a picture of Chris with Michael McKean and Harry Shearer from Spinal Tap [1984], but just as regular guys. Debra said, “Oh, I know him, and he’s with your agency. I tried to get him in a movie.” So I called the agent, left my number, but Chris never called me. And then I ran in to him at a restaurant.”
Weaver, who turned the tables on Curtis to ask some questions of her own, proceeded to enquire if Curtis approached Guest in the restaurant, to which the latter replies:
“No. He was sitting about ten feet away and he looked at me and kind of nodded. I made a gesture, like, “Hi, I’m the one who called you.” I was sitting with Melanie Griffith and Steven Bauer, and I looked down at my plate and whispered, “Oh my God, I called this guy and he never called me back and there he is.” At that moment, Chris got up to leave. He shrugged his shoulders, and basically waved goodbye. Not a word was exchanged. And then he called me the next day. He had kept my number. That was June 28, 1984, and I married him four months later, on December 18. He didn’t save my shoes, or what did you say Jim stayed late to do?”
Within four months of that fateful encounter, Curtis and Guest were to be wed. The next time you’re in a rut and thinking that love will never find you, take Curtis and Guest’s story as the encouragement you need and remember — that if it’s meant to be, it will be.
Curtis and Guest have two adopted daughters together
Curtis shares two daughters with her husband — Annie (born in 1986) and Ruby (born in 1996) — whom she makes no attempt to hide her affection for. Annie Guest (36) inspired Curtis to write her first book, When I Was Little: A Four-Year-Old’s Memoir of Her Youth. As per The List, “At age 8, Guest joined the MNR Dance Factory in Los Angeles, where she spent 8 years competing all over the world with the studio’s dance team. By age 16, Guest had begun teaching dance.” Per People, Annie Guest married Jason Wolf in July 2019. As for Ruby Guest, Curtis’ transgender daughter, she tied the knot with her partner Kynthia in May 2022. Ruby, formerly known as Tom Guest, came out as transgender in 2020 and Curtis has supported her and loved her unconditionally ever since.
At the 2023 Golden Globe awards, Curtis was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture for Everything Everywhere All at Once. Curtis’ future projects include the supernatural horror-comedy Haunted Mansion and a role in the live-action adaptation of the Borderlands video game series.
