Tim Curry Dies at 80: The Unforgettable Star of ROCKY HORROR, IT and CLUE Leaves One Hell of a Legacy

Tim Curry could walk into a movie, flash that unmistakable grin, and immediately own the damn thing. Whether he was terrifying kids as Pennywise, unleashing glorious chaos as Dr. Frank N. Furter, racing through a murder mystery as Wadsworth, or towering over a fantasy world as Darkness, Curry had a presence you simply couldn’t ignore.

The legendary actor, singer, stage performer, and voice artist died Tuesday in Los Angeles at the age of 80, leaving behind more than five decades of unforgettable characters and one hell of a legacy.

A cause of death wasn’t immediately available, but he had dealt with several health issues after suffering a severe stroke in 2012.

This one hurts. I’ve been a huge Tim Curry fan for as long as I can remember, and while he played so many awesome characters throughout his career, the performance permanently burned into my childhood memories is Pennywise the Clown in Stephen King’s It.

Curry was so damn good in that role. That was the magic of Curry. Whatever role he took, he committed to it with an energy that was completely his own.

Of course, the character that changed everything for Curry was Dr. Frank N. Furter in The Rocky Horror Show, the wonderfully outrageous “sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania” created by Richard O’Brien.

Curry originated Frank N. Furter on the London stage under director Jim Sharman, followed the production to Los Angeles and New York, and eventually brought the character to movie screens in Sharman’s 1975 The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The film initially flopped, only to transform into one of the most enduring cult movies ever made.

Much like Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein monster or Bela Lugosi’s Dracula became inseparable from the actors who played them, Frank N. Furter became Curry’s signature character. Curry knew early on that taking the role could have lasting consequences, but that was also part of what attracted him to it.

“It seemed like something that would go,” Curry said of the part in a 1975 TV interview in London. He added, prophetically, “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 willingness to go for it defined so much of his career.

Curry was born April 19, 1948, in rural Grappenhall, Cheshire. After his father died in 1958, the family relocated to South London. Curry showed an early talent for acting and singing and later graduated from the University of Birmingham with degrees in English and drama.

His first professional theatrical job came in 1968 when he played Woof in the London company of Hair, the “American tribal love rock musical.” It was through Hair that he became acquainted with O’Brien, who had performed with the show’s touring company.

O’Brien eventually showed Curry a manuscript for the project that became The Rocky Horror Show, a wild musical mash-up inspired by classic monster movies, old-dark-house horror, B-grade science fiction, and the changing sexual attitudes of the era.

Curry believed the idea had real potential. He auditioned for Frank N. Furter by singing Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti,” and Sharman gave him the role.

Before Rocky Horror made him a star, Curry built an impressive theatrical résumé at venues including the Royal Court Theatre and Citizens Theatre, performing works by Shakespeare, Brecht, Buchner, and Stoppard.

Once The Rocky Horror Show caught fire in London, American producer Lou Adler brought it to the Roxy on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, where its cast included another future icon, Meat Loaf. The show had a successful L.A. run, but Broadway wasn’t nearly as welcoming. Its production at the Belasco Theatre closed after only 45 performances.

The movie initially looked destined for the same fate. Starring Curry alongside Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, and O’Brien, The Rocky Horror Picture Show performed terribly during its original release. Curry, however, was already attracting attention.

Critic Roger Ebert wrote that the actor “bears a certain resemblance to Loretta Young in drag. He’s the best thing in the movie, maybe because he seems to be having the most fun. He’s also a capable actor….[U]ntil the climactic scene in which everyone’s hurtled into outer space, Dr. Furter’s been the perfect hostess.”

20th Century Fox appeared prepared to write the movie off after poor testing and a disappointing booking in Columbus, Ohio. Publicist Tim Deegan, however, noticed the crowds showing up for midnight screenings of John Waters’ Pink Flamingos at Los Angeles’ Nuart Theatre and believed Rocky Horror could find a similar crowd.

“I was totally convinced there was a midnight audience,” Deegan said. After making his case to Fox film chief Alan Ladd Jr., Deegan helped get midnight screenings booked at New York’s Waverly Theater in spring 1976. The audience found the movie, and everything changed.

Those screenings evolved into an entertainment ritual of their own, complete with costumes, audience participation, props, shouted responses, and countless performances of “Time Warp.” Decades later, The Rocky Horror Picture Show remained a cultural phenomenon, with Curry at its center.

During the height of the Rocky Horror craze in the late 1970s, Curry also pursued music. He signed with A&M Records and released three rock albums, including Fearless, which reached No. 53 in 1979, and Simplicity, which reached No. 112 in 1981.

Frank N. Furter may have followed Curry for the rest of his life, but anyone who actually followed his career knows how much more he could do.

His stage work earned major recognition. Curry received a Tony Award nomination for playing Mozart in the 1981 New York production of Amadeus. His turn as the Pirate King in the 1982 Drury Lane production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance earned him a Laurence Olivier Award nomination.

He later returned to Broadway as the hard-drinking, swashbuckling actor Alan Swann in the musical version of My Favorite Year. Years later, Curry became King Arthur in the New York and London productions of Monty Python’s Spamalot, Mike Nichols’ musical adaptation of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

His movie career gave us an equally crazy assortment of characters. Curry played con man Rooster Harrigan in John Huston’s Annie in 1982. Then came the massive horns, hooves, and layers of prosthetic makeup required to turn him into Darkness for Ridley Scott’s 1985 fantasy Legend.

The makeup reportedly took five hours to apply, but the result gave fantasy cinema one of its coolest and most instantly recognizable villains.

Then there’s Clue. I absolutely love Clue, and Curry is one of the biggest reasons the movie is still so much fun. His performance as Wadsworth is a masterclass in comic timing, escalating panic, physical comedy, and controlled chaos.

Watching him race through that mansion while explaining the increasingly ridiculous murder mystery never gets old. Like Rocky Horror, Clue didn’t initially find the audience it deserved, but it eventually became a cult classic.

Curry also brought some serious menace to television. He starred as Bill Sikes in the 1982 TV movie Oliver Twist and appeared in a 1989 record-industry storyline on Wiseguy.

Then came Pennywise. Curry played the nightmare-inducing clown in the 1990 television miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s It, and for an entire generation of kids, his face became a very good reason to avoid storm drains.

I was one of those kids. His Pennywise could be goofy for a second, then horrifying a moment later. Curry didn’t need elaborate effects to make the character scary. A grin, a change in his voice, or the way he looked at one of the kids was enough.

That performance gave me nightmares, and I mean that as the highest possible compliment. I’m grateful for those scares because that’s exactly what great horror is supposed to do. It sticks with you.

Curry also won a Daytime Emmy for voicing Captain Hook on the 1990-91 animated series Peter Pan and the Pirates.

During the 1990s, he bounced effortlessly between drama and comedy. He appeared in The Hunt for Red October in 1990 and The Three Musketeers in 1993, while also leaning into the comic performances he did so well.

He played Plaza Hotel concierge Mr. Hector in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York in 1992, Jigsaw in the 1993 action spoof Loaded Weapon 1, Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island in 1996, Major Vladakov in McHale’s Navy in 1997, and Gomez Addams in Addams Family Reunion.

His attempts to lead live-action television series were less successful, with Over the Top in 1997 and the 2002 revival of Family Affair each ending after a single season. Curry kept working constantly, though, appearing in movies including Charlie’s Angels, Scary Movie 2, Ritual, and Kinsey.

Animation became another huge part of his career. Beginning with FernGully: The Last Rainforest in 1992, Curry became one of those voices you’d suddenly recognize in all kinds of animated movies and shows. His credits included The Pebble and the Penguin, The Rugrats Movie, Rugrats in Paris, and The Wild Thornberrys Movie, along with his work on The Wild Thornberrys television series.

His voice work became especially important following the severe stroke he suffered in 2012, which left him using a wheelchair. Curry continued working, with animation and video games providing many of his later performances.

He also remained connected to the character that started the madness. In 2016, Curry appeared as the narrator in the television remake The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do the Time Warp Again, with Laverne Cox stepping into the role of Frank N. Furter.

Four years later, Curry revisited Frank himself during a live table reading of The Rocky Horror Show held as part of a Wisconsin fundraiser for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.

It’s difficult to boil down Tim Curry’s career to one role because everybody seems to have their own Tim Curry. For some people, he’ll always be Frank N. Furter strutting across the stage in Rocky Horror. For horror fans like me, it’s that terrifying Pennywise grin. Clue fans immediately picture Wadsworth frantically tearing through Hill House.

Fantasy geeks see Darkness emerging from the shadows in Legend. A younger generation may hear his voice and think of Captain Hook or one of the many animated characters he brought to life.

That range is what made watching Curry so much fun. You could put him in a horror movie, musical, comedy, fantasy adventure, animated series, stage production, family movie, or ridiculous spoof and he would find something memorable to do with it.

I liked him in everything he did. Even when the movie around him wasn’t great, Curry was worth watching.

There was only one Tim Curry. He could scare the hell out of you, make you laugh, belt out a song, play a larger-than-life villain, or steal an entire movie with a facial expression.

His career stretched more than half a century, earned him Emmy recognition along with Tony and Olivier nominations, and gave pop culture a collection of characters that people will continue discovering for generations.

For me, though, I’ll always come back to Pennywise and Clue. One scared the crap out of me as a kid. The other still makes me laugh. I couldn’t ask for a better pair of memories from an actor I’ve enjoyed watching for so many years.

Thanks for the nightmares, the laughs, the Time Warps, the wonderfully insane villains, and all those unforgettable performances, Tim. You were one of a kind.