Tony Curtis, the Hollywood star of more than 100 films, made a surprise appearance in Costco in Bushey yesterday, choosing the village store as one of his only UK signing stops.

A seemingly endless queue of star-struck film fans waited for hours to see the Spartacus and Some Like it Hot actor despite the signing being open only to Costco members and not externally advertised.

Mr Curtis dazzled old and young supporters by ignoring his management’s hurrying to take time to talk to each passing fan and stretch long past his allocated time slot.

He said: “It astounds me how generous people are. They don’t know me, they’ve seen me in movies but they don’t know me and I treat them like they treat me so it’s a special experience for me as well as them.”

One of his dedicated fans, Mary Gale, of Church Lane, Kings Langley, was taken to the signing for a surprise present ahead of her 90th birthday in December.

She said: "Some Like it Hot is the one I remember. I went to see lots of them but that was brilliant."

Another fan, Robert Williams, brought his three children Chloe, Holly and Danny and his wife Michele to the event.

He said: "It's just pure luck that we were shopping and found out about it. I sent a text to my mum and said 'guess who's coming to Costco in Bushey?'

"She knows I'm a football fan so she asked if it was Thierry Henry. When I told her it was Tony Curtis it blew her away."

Putting to use his hobby of art and painting, Mr Curtis drew portraits and pictures for child fans before being amazed himself by the photos people brought him from throughout his 60 year career.

“Where did you get these?” he asked fans who brought prints for him to sign, saying he remembered every photo shoot as clearly as the day it happened.

The 83-year-old icon showed no sign of losing any of his wit or charm as he quipped about his Persuaders! co-star Roger Moore wearing his trousers too high and his own aging from a “good looking kid”.

When asked about the countless characters he had portrayed, Curtis said one of his favourite images was portraying Leslie Gallant III in The Great Race.

He said: “I loved that. Dressed all in white. When I saw how generous people were when they saw me in the movie I thought I’d be a little bit of that chap.”

Another memorable moment he looked back to in his career was a bath scene in Spartacus with Sir Laurence Olivier which proved so controversial in its homosexual overtones that it was originally edited out.

He said: “I took a bath with Sir Larry and he tried to convince me that he loves not only oysters but oysters and snails. Everybody knew what he wanted. Those movies are still good now.”

He added: “I was lucky in the sense that when I got into the scene every picture I made had a different theme and a different purpose.”

Mr Curtis was in Costco to promote his new tell-all autobiography, American Prince,which spans through an abused childhood, stint in the navy serving in Japan, six marriages, romance with Marilyn Monroe and work with people including Jack Lemmon, Cary Grant, Kirk Douglas and Stanley Kubrick.

He said it had taken him a year to record his life story before it was typed into some 350 pages.

He added: “I could write five books if I wanted to.”