The reliably eccentric Tony Curtis is kicking up a serious fuss with his upcoming book. Still upright at 84, Curtis has dared to suggest that he and Marilyn Monroe were lovers during the making of Some Like it Hotand that she became pregnant with his child.

The Making of Some Like it Hot: My Memories of Marilyn Monroe and the Classic American Movie, which will be published next month, details the beginnings of the relationship in 1949 and its reignition during the making of Billy Wilder's classic nine years later. In the interim, Curtis had become married to Janet Leigh and Monroe had linked up with Arthur Miller, so the story does count as a proper scandal.

“What I experienced with her was unforgettable,” the former Bernie Schwartz claims. He suggests that he first heard about the pregnancy (Monroe later had a miscarriage) when they were coming clean to Miller about the alleged affair. “I was stunned. I just stood there. The room was so silent that I could hear tyres screeching on Santa Monica Boulevard.”