‘But in real life he did say plenty of interesting things, some flippant and glib, some deep and profound.

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‘Famously, early in his life – and hers – he had that 1948 affair with Marilyn Monroe: ‘Someone said to me, “Hey, what’s it like kissing Marilyn Monroe?” I said, “It’s like kissing Hitler. What are you doing asking me such a stupid question?’

‘And then he could come out with absolute crackers stuff: ‘I wouldn’t be caught dead marrying a woman old enough to be my wife,’ said the five times divorced, six times married Curtis. And: ‘I got a lot of girls while I was at the peak. If I didn’t get them, I got their stand-ins,’ said this very funny man.

‘But he would also declare: ‘We’re all brought up in a world that isn’t the best place for us to be in once in a while. There are so many problems and we try to overcome them all.’ And – and this is what we’re getting to: ‘I guess I’ve still got some of that old live-it-up left in me. I’m buying a Rolls Royce convertible. Going the whole route, you might say.’

‘The Gurney Nutting bodywork is one of the most elegant and admired coachwork designs on the 20/25 chassis.

‘The Rolls-Royce 20/25 was introduced in 1929. Fitted with a 3.7L straight six engine, the 20/25 was sold as a rolling chassis by Rolls-Royce, with bodies offered by a range of coachbuilders. The Rolls-Royce 20/25 was in production until 1936.

‘The Rolls-Royce 20/25hp was, of course, an exclusively coachbuilt automobile, and most of the great British coachbuilding firms offered designs, many of them unique, on the 20/25hp chassis. Some of the most widely admired was the work of J Gurney Nutting, a company associated with quality marques – Bentley in particular – from its earliest days and a supreme practitioner of the coachbuilding craft.

‘Founded in Croydon, Surrey in 1919, Gurney Nutting had bodied its first Bentley before moving to London’s fashionable Chelsea district in 1924, and within a few years was established as the Cricklewood firm’s foremost supplier of bodies after Vanden Plas.

‘By general consent, Gurney Nutting’s stunning drophead coupés – developed for fashionable retailers, H R Owen – are among the most handsome and best proportioned ever to grace the Rolls-Royce 20/25 chassis.

‘My life is very full,’ said Tony Curtis, our Rolls-Royce 20/25’s former owner, three years before he passed on. ‘My wife makes it so. I’m 82 years old and I’m having the best time I’ve ever had in my life. I want to share that with all of you. Find a way to do that, find a way to be at peace with yourself, to enjoy the little things in life. Make them your own.’

‘With a Rolls-Royce 20/25.

-Alex Manos, Owner