Tim Curry, Star of ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show,’ Dies at 80
New York Times · LC · trust 70/100
The actor’s gift for garish eccentricity was indelibly appropriate for the outlandish, cross-dressing mad scientist Frank-N-Furter.
The actor’s gift for garish eccentricity was indelibly appropriate for the outlandish, cross-dressing mad scientist Frank-N-Furter.
Tim Curry in 1974, the year he starred in the premiere American production of “The Rocky Horror Show” in Los Angeles. Credit... Evening Standard/Hulton Archive, via Getty Images
Tim Curry, the British-born actor whose gift for garish eccentricity lit up stage and screen, most notably as the outlandish, cross-dressing mad scientist in the midnight cult film “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” died on Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 80.
The death was confirmed by Marcia Hurwitz, his longtime agent and manager. In 2012, Mr. Curry suffered a serious stroke, from which, he said last year , “I’ve been recovering for quite a long time.”
With a mischief-maker’s good looks, a casual athletic grace and a supple and resonant voice, Mr. Curry was a favorite in roles calling for expressive villainy or general cartoonishness.
In the first screen version of “Annie” (1982), he brought more than a dollop of slime to the part of Rooster Hannigan, the con artist who concocts a plot to kidnap the plucky orphan of the title. In “Clue” (1985), a suspense spoof derived from the popular board game, he played Wadsworth, a logorrheic butler who leads a cast full of murder suspects around a spooky mansion with the fast-talking fervor of a manic Sherlock Holmes.
In “Spamalot,” the stage musical based on the Monty Python troupe’s bottomlessly goofy retelling of the King Arthur legend, which opened on Broadway in 2005, he played Arthur himself and was nominated for a Tony Award.
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