Tim Curry was always more than Rocky Horror.
From Frank-N-Furter to Pennywise, Curry spent more than five decades making strange look like a very good place to be.
As Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, he strutted around in fishnets and pearls and helped turn a strange little musical into one of cinema’s great cult institutions.
But the English actor and singer, who has died aged 80, was never just Frank-N-Furter.
His longtime manager Marcia Hurwitz confirmed Curry died at his Los Angeles home on Tuesday night, August 25. No cause of death has been released.
Curry originated Frank-N-Furter in Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show in London in 1973, before taking the role to screen in the 1975 film.
It was the kind of performance that could have swallowed a career whole.
Instead, Curry spent the next five decades finding new ways to be funny, sinister, theatrical and occasionally completely unhinged.
He was Wadsworth in Clue, Pennywise in the 1990 adaptation of Stephen King’s It, Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island and the increasingly furious Plaza Hotel concierge in Home Alone 2.
Theatre remained a big part of his life too.
Curry earned three Tony nominations, including for Amadeus and Spamalot, released three solo albums and built a huge voice-acting career across FernGully, The Wild Thornberrys and Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
Then, in 2012, a major stroke changed things considerably.
Curry was left using a wheelchair and stepped away from much of the physical performance that had defined his earlier work, but he never completely disappeared.
He continued voice acting, attended conventions and, in 2025, released his memoir Vagabond.
Talking about his career that year, Curry summed up his approach simply: “I’ve had the opportunities, and I’m still showing up. You know? I think that’s what you have to do. You have to keep showing up.”
By then, he was also speaking pretty openly about getting older and what eventually came with it.
Asked by CBS Sunday Morning if he feared dying, Curry said:
“I don’t fear death. I try to avoid it, as I think we all do! But I suspect that in the end, I will welcome it.”
Then, with the same dry humour he carried through most of his career:
“I think it may be very comforting to go bye-bye – and I want to earn it!”
