‘He could arch both eyebrows and curl his lips in every direction all at once’: Tim Curry’s five best screen roles

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

As Dr Frank-N-Furter, the gender-nonconforming alien mad scientist who presides over Richard O’Brien’s glam rock musical, admits two innocents to his gothic castle and induces them into all sorts of delicious naughtiness, Curry is so thrillingly liberated as to seem a menace. An irresistibly appealing menace. Apparently able to arch both eyebrows and curl his lips in every direction all at once, Curry wraps his mouth around the double-entendres and belts out the lyrics with lip-smacking relish, and fully fleshes out this avatar of sexual confidence. The film earned one of the original cult fandoms, the stage musical endures and many other actors have pulled on Frank’s corset and high heels – but the role indelibly and for ever belongs to Curry.

Legend (1985)

A physical actor bursting with personality, Curry was at his best inhabiting outsized roles. He near fills up the entire frame as the prowling Lord of Darkness who kidnaps a princess and torments innocent forest child Tom Cruise in Ridley Scott’s visually sumptuous high fantasy.

Clue (1985)

The debonair manner and hint of a self-amused smile that were seemingly Curry’s birthright were deployed to delightful effect as Wadsworth, the butler who is just about a half a step ahead of everyone else in this madcap murder-mystery comedy, reputedly worked on by Tom Stoppard, and inspired by the board game that’s called Clue in North America and Cluedo everywhere else.

It (1990)

Inculcating coulrophobia in an entire generation of kids who stayed up late to watch this TV Stephen King adaptation, Curry played a shapeshifting child-murdering interdimensional entity – but ever a devotee of the theatrical arts, he did it in clown makeup. Charming baddies were his metier, and Pennywise the Clown was the baddest of the lot.

Muppet Treasure Island (1996)

It was Curry’s great gift as an actor to always know exactly how seriously to take a role – certainly no more than necessary but never any less either. As the devious West Country buccaneer Long John Silver in a Muppets movie, he was fully on board with the make-believe, fully on board with the silliness.