More than 400 people with invitations attended the funeral in the chapel of the Palm Green Valley Cemetery. A couple thousand more waited solemnly outside of the cemetery walls.
The funeral area was decorated with pictures of Curtis in his youth as well as six of his paintings.
California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recalled in a eulogy how Curtis had encouraged him in his own career when Hollywood had looked down on him because of his strange name and foreign accent.
?You?ll do it. Don?t worry about those guys! They told me the same thing when I first came here,? Schwarzenegger said Curtis had told him.
In a teary but humorous farewell to her father, the actress Jamie Lee Curtis said he was ?a little meshuggah?, Yiddish for ?crazy?.
Jill Vandenberg Curtis, Curtis?s sixth wife, with whom he spent the last 16 years of his life, said he had been buried in a white sweater, white driving gloves and his favourite Armani scarf. Also with him were three objects from Hungary: a yarmulke from the Dohány Street synagogue in Budapest, which he helped to rebuild, a tailor?s tool from his father and a state award.
?Our entire nation grieves in sorrow for an outstanding actor and the bearer of the Order of the Hungarian Republic,? Réthelyi said in a letter presented to Curtis?s daughter.
?Tony once said that every Hungarian was a relative of his,? Bokor said in a letter presented to Curtis?s widow.
Curtis?s coffin was draped with an American flag. Among his pallbearers were the businessman Kirk Kerkorian, the actor Kirk Douglas, the singer Phyllis McGuire and one of the heads of the Luxor in Las Vegas Gene Kilroy.
Curtis died at his home in Nevada on September 29, aged 85.
Photo: MTI / EPA
