Mrs. Tony Curtis Still Rescues Horses

It’s been 14 years screen legend Tony Curtis died. He left behind his wife, Jill Vandenberg Curtis. What has become of Mrs. Tony Curtis? Tinseltown writer Nick Thomas catches us up on her life and love.

It’s been 14 years since 85-year-old screen legend Tony Curtis died at his Nevada home on Sept. 29, 2010. The much-loved actor left behind a body of work that included over 150 television and movie roles in such classics as “The Defiant Ones,” “Some Like it Hot,” and “The Sweet Smell of Success.” Curtis remarried for the last time in 1998 and his new bride, Jill Vandenberg, was some 40 years his junior. The pair became inseparable, traveling the world together. But back in Nevada, the couple founded Shiloh, a horse rescue ranch.

“I was horrified to learn that tens of thousands of unwanted American horses are slaughtered each year for human consumption in Asia and Europe,” Jill told me in 2006 when I met her and Tony on their ranch. “I realized I could do more to help horses.”

“We were driving in the car one evening and Jilly told me she wanted to save some of those horses,” Tony recalled to me. “I told her let’s go do it!”

They did, and the couple soon acquired 40 acres of desert outside Las Vegas, eventually transforming the barren area into a nurturing ranch where hundreds of horses were saved. I still recall Curtis’s joy when I asked him to comment on the success of the Shiloh sanctuary: “It picks up my spirits to see the good work done there,” was his reply.

Today, Jill Curtis is now Jill Curtis-Weber after marrying Todd Weber three years after Tony died. The couple met at a country and western club in Vegas and were married six months later. After selling the Nevada ranch and her Las Vegas home, they moved to Deadwood, South Dakota, often romanticized as the heart of the American West with history steeped in gold rushes, outlaws, and frontier legends such as Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane.

“We both loved the history of the Old West and began traveling around selling our horseshoe art,” said Jill, when I met up with her recently at her shop in the heart of downtown Deadwood. “When we came here we loved it and decided to stay.”

Along with her husband and mother, Sally, the trio run The Lucky Horse Co., a thriving Western-themed business specializing in decorative horseshoes and other gifts (see www.shilohhorserescue.com). Their charming little shop, an open-air wooden structure built around a living tree, is located on the main street of Deadwood. It’s filled with hundreds of Western art pieces, showcased by unique horseshoe art – beautifully painted or decorated horseshoes for wall hangings and intricate pieces welded into artistic shapes.

“We make everything here in Deadwood by hand,” said Jill. “Todd does all the welding for the horseshoes and also teaches gold panning to tourists! He built the shop around the tree and based it on an old livery stable from the late 1800s. The profits go towards supporting Shiloh.”

With her deep passion for horses, it was a natural progression for Jill to expand into Western art. She relocated Shiloh Ranch from Nevada to Newell, about 30 minutes from Deadwood, where the ranch has rescued and rehabilitated over 700 horses since its founding. She remains grateful to her previous husband for supporting her horse rescue efforts and recognizes some similarities between Tony and Todd.

“Todd has the same sense of humor and wit, and is very intelligent and kind,” she said. “I think Tony would have liked him. Todd is very supportive of my past life and has never felt he had to live up to Tony, who had a larger-than-life personality. We were ready to start a new life, a simpler life, in this beautiful historic Old West town. Tony and I watched and really enjoyed HBO’s ‘Deadwood’ series, so I believe he would absolutely love that I now live in the town.”

PHOTO CAPTION, TOP: Jill Curtis, center, with husband Todd and mother Sally in their Deadwood shop. Photo Nick Thomas.

Nick Thomas teaches at Auburn University at Montgomery, Ala., and has written features, columns, and interviews for numerous magazines and newspapers, including many in the Boomer nostalgia and humor departments. See www.getnickt.org