Jamie Lee Curtis had an emotional reaction to the news of actor Robert Carradine’s death ― for very personal reasons.
Carradine died Monday, and his family acknowledged to Deadline that the 71-year-old had struggled with bipolar disorder for nearly two decades.
Upon hearing the news, Curtis honored the man she once referred to as her ’first love” with a touching Instagram post remembering the good times they shared.
Their first meeting was definitely memorable.
The 67-year-old Curtis said she first met Carradine “live on television on the Dinah Shore show when they had a bunch of second generation actors, we would call them now Nepo babies.”
Curtis said Carradine rearranged the seating so that he was next to her.
“And he kissed me, live on television,” she added. “A very public meet cute.”
When Curtis met Carradine, he had a 3-year-old daughter, Ever, who Curtis noted is “now a talented actress.” She said the relationship marked her “first experience with domesticity and motherhood and partnership.”
She also remembered that Carradine made a movie with Melanie Griffith and “they were lovers,” adding that “later in my life, Melanie and I became colleagues and ride or die best friends and we remain so to this day and she was the one who told me about his passing.”
Curtis said one of the sweeter moments in their relationship was when she suddenly realized he had acted in John Wayne’s 1972 Western “The Cowboys.”
“He was my first crush in the movies and I didn’t realize it,” she said, before noting that Carradine made another Western, “The Long Riders,” in 1980 with her future husband, Christopher Guest.
“We … remained friends after we broke up and Ever and I have as well,” she said. “The long and winding road. Rest in speed and humor and love, Bobby.”
