Tim Curry, the electrifying actor who became a midnight-movie legend as Dr. Frank N. Furter in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” died Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 80. His longtime manager, Marcia Hurwitz, confirmed to Variety that Curry died peacefully at his Toluca Lake home, with no cause immediately available.
Curry’s career was defined by the wicked, bustier-clad mad scientist he originated on stage in London for director Jim Sharman and brought to the screen in Sharman’s 1975 film. The movie flopped on release before finding wild new life as a cult staple, its singalong midnight screenings becoming a ritual at theaters across the country for decades.
“It seemed like something that would go. I was hesitant in that, if it worked, it might be a difficult image to shake off. But really, I’ve often thought that it wasn’t worth doing unless you took a risk.”
That was Curry, in a 1975 TV interview, on the part that would make him a star and haunt him all his life.
More Than a One-Trick Pony
Far from a one-hit wonder, Curry packed a career spanning more than half a century. He made his professional stage debut in the London company of “Hair” in 1968, earned a Tony nomination for playing Mozart in “Amadeus” in 1981 and an Olivier nod as the Pirate King in “The Pirates of Penzance.” On screen he was Darkness in Ridley Scott’s “Legend,” the droll butler Wadsworth in “Clue,” Mr. Hector in “Home Alone 2” and Long John Silver in “Muppet Treasure Island.” He also terrified a generation as Pennywise in the 1990 miniseries “IT” and won a Daytime Emmy voicing Captain Hook in “Peter Pan and the Pirates.”
After a severe stroke in 2012 left him reliant on a wheelchair, Curry kept working as a voice actor. He returned to the “Rocky Horror” universe in 2016 as the narrator of the TV remake “Let’s Do the Time Warp Again,” with Laverne Cox taking over as Frank N. Furter.
Why It Matters
For generations, Curry’s Frank N. Furter taught audiences that the weirdest, most theatrical misfit in the room could also be the most magnetic. He turned a flop into a decades-long phenomenon, and his passing marks the end of an era for the cult film community that has gathered every weekend to dance the Time Warp. The midnight screenings go on — but the man who started the party will be missed.
His spirit lives on in every singalong, every tossed piece of toast and every fan who ever felt seen in a pair of fishnets.
