Tim Curry, the charismatic star of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, has reportedly died at the age of 80.
Curry was famed for his extensive work on stage and roles in films such as Clue, Annie, Spamalot and It.
His manager confirmed his death to The New York Times.
TMZ was first to report that the actor died late Tuesday at his Los Angeles home. A cause of death was not immediately given, though the actor had suffered from significant health problems since a major stroke in 2012 left him unable to walk.
Born Timothy James Curry in Cheshire, England, in 1946, Curry was the younger child of Patricia, a school secretary, and James, a Methodist chaplain for the Royal Navy. He had an older sister, Judith – a concert pianist, who died in 2001.
Curry grew up in Plymouth and attended boarding school. In 1958, when he was just 12 years old, his childhood was rocked by his father’s death from pneumonia.
Ten years later, it was watching Judi Dench onstage as Sally Bowles in Cabaret at London’s Palace Theatre that made him determined to be an actor.
Actor and director Patrick Barlow recalled his days sharing a house with Curry while studying at Birmingham University. “I remember being amazed by his extraordinary singing voice – it was just completely perfect, just something he was born with – it came ready made,” he told The Guardian.
Curry burst onto the West End scene after graduating, when he was cast in the original UK production of the hit hippie musical Hair. To land the role, he lied to producers about his experience and claimed to have an Equity card, allowing him to bypass union rules that would otherwise have prevented him from being cast.
Describing it as a “liberating” experience – one which involved stripping off on stage – Curry played the part of the free-spirited hippie, Woof. He became good friends with his co-star Richard O’Brien, who went on to write the role that would define Curry’s career: cross-dressing mad scientist Dr Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Show.
Rocky Horror, a camp, sexually subversive rock musical, opened in London in 1973, and Curry took on the role for two years, performing onstage in New York and at the Roxy in Los Angeles. In 1975, he reprised the role for the film adaptation, The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Starring Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, O’Brien and Meat Loaf, the film became a cult hit of the highest magnitude and is now considered a classic of musical cinema.
Part of the film’s success has been credited to its popularity at midnight screenings, with audiences often dressing in the distinctive BDSM-inspired costumes from the movie. It continues to run in limited release to this day, half a century later, making it the longest-running film release of all time.
Speaking to The Student Television of Imperial College in 1975, Curry was asked if he had any hesitation in accepting the role. “I was hesitant in that, if it worked, it might be a difficult image to shake off,” he replied.
When that fear proved, to some extent, justified, Curry spent decades refusing to discuss Rocky Horror in the few interviews he gave to the press. He never turned against the film, however, and in 2016 returned to the franchise, taking on the role of the Criminologist in a made-for-TV remake.
In 1978, Curry recorded his debut album, a rock record titled Read My Lips. The varied collection of covers featured a heavyweight roster of musicians underneath him, including Dick Wagner, Bob Babbitt and Nils Lofgren.
Curry would go on to record two more studio albums (plus a host of soundtracks), and toured with a live band.
Following Rocky Horror, Curry became one of theatre’s most in-demand actors, appearing in plays such as Tom Stoppard’s Travesties and the original Broadway production of Mozart drama Amadeus in 1981. Curry was nominated for a Tony for his role as Mozart himself, though he lost – in an inversion of the play’s plotline – to co-star Sir Ian McKellen, who played the composer’s bitter musical rival Salieri.
Other stage roles followed – The Pirates of Penzance; The Rivals; My Favourite Year (which earned him a second Tony nomination) – as did a number of prominent roles in Hollywood films. With a distinctive smirk, Curry showed a particular aptitude for villains, playing “Rooster” Hannigan in the 1982 film adaptation of Annie, and the nefarious Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island.
He went on to appear in films including Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, submarine thriller The Hunt for Red October and Clue, the star-studded adaptation of the board game Cluedo. In 1990, he took on his best-known television role as the supernatural villain Pennywise the Clown in the TV adaptation of It.
While Curry kept his private life removed from the public eye throughout his life, he did cultivate a number of close friendships with well-known celebrities, including Freddie Mercury and Michael Palin, who described Curry as “rather quiet” at first, but later “garrulous and at times quite ebullient.”
“There’s a soft, very English quality about Tim which is quite at odds with the Rocky Horror side,” he claimed.
Little was known of Curry’s personal affairs, but he was said to be a keen gardener and a devoted dog owner. He once designed Mercury’s garden, though later recalled with amusement that the plants had died off while the Queen frontman was away on tour, with Mercury unaware of even the most basic watering requirements.
Curry continued acting well into the 21st century, on screen and on the stage, including in the production of the Monty Python musical Spamalot in 2004. (This role would earn him his third Tony nod.)
In July 2012, Curry suffered a major stroke and required the use of a wheelchair.
After this, he pivoted predominantly to voice acting, a trade that he had long honed across TV, film and video games. Among his prolific voice acting CV were projects such as FernGully: The Last Rainforest, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Peter Pan & the Pirates, the latter of which won him an Emmy Award.
