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Tim Curry, the versatile performer of screen and stage, who made his name as the flamboyant Dr Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Show, has died aged 80. Reports say Curry died at his home in Los Angeles.
The actor’s manager confirmed to Variety that he died peacefully. No cause of death is known as yet.
Ironically, Curry’s best-known roles all required a considerable physical transformation, to the extent that he was unrecognisable in all of them. Frank-N-Furter, Rocky Horror’s deranged scientist, saw him daubed in garish makeup and wearing stockings and suspenders, for the stage show (which debuted in 1973) and the film adaptation (released in 1975). In the Ridley Scott-directed fantasy Legend (1985), he was equipped with giant horns and scarlet skin as the Lord of Darkness. And in 1990, Curry was transformed with full-face clown pancake to play Pennywise in the TV miniseries It, based on the Stephen King novel.
Alongside these show-stopping incarnations, Curry enjoyed a successful parallel career in film, TV and theatre. Born in 1946, he earned a degree in drama and English from the University of Birmingham in 1968 and embarked on a stage career. His first significant role was in the original cast for the first West End production of the controversial musical Hair, in 1968 – where he met Richard O’Brien, who would go on to cast him in his own musical, The Rocky Horror Show. Curry went on to play Tristan Tzara in Tom Stoppard’s Travesties (taking over the role from John Hurt and Robert Powell), and Mozart in the Broadway transfer of Amadeus in 1980. Later highlights included King Arthur in the Broadway run of the Monty Python musical Spamalot.
Curry worked regularly in film, in roles including that of Robert Graves in Jerzy Skolimowski’s sinister The Shout, and later as Jeremy in the Ian McEwan-scripted political drama The Ploughman’s Lunch. Later, Curry found himself working largely in comedies – including Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Muppet Treasure Island, Scary Movie 2, and McHale’s Navy – before providing voiceovers for numerous animated films, such as Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, A Turtle’s Tale: Sammy’s Adventures and Ribbit.
Curry was also a regular presence on TV for more than four decades, playing William Shakespeare in John Mortimer’s six-part biography of the playwright in 1978, Bill Sikes in the 1982 US TV adaptation of Oliver Twist, and the wizard Trymon in the adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s The Colour of Magic in 2008. He voiced a stream of animated series (Duckman, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Mask and Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and was cast in many guest roles in established series, including Psych, Poirot and Criminal Minds.
“I’ve had the opportunities,” he said to the Guardian in 2025, “and I’m still showing up. You know? I think that’s what you have to do. You have to keep showing up.”
In 2012, Curry had a stroke while receiving a massage and received brain surgery. He was left with mobility issues and his short-term memory was also affected. “It was an odd thing, because my father had a stroke and died very soon afterwards,” he said. “I knew I had to force myself to relax and just take the opportunity to float a little.”
In 2025, he released his memoir Vagabond.
“I’m very aware that I’m lucky,” Curry said last year. “I’m astonished actually at how ambitious I’ve been. I didn’t think of myself as ambitious at all.”
Luke Evans, who played the role of Dr Frank-N-Furter in the recent Broadway production of The Rocky Horror Show, paid tribute on Instagram. The actor called him “a force, a bright fierce flame” and “an inspiration”. He added: “There will only be one Tim Curry.”
Carol Burnett, who starred with Curry in Annie, also paid tribute online. “Nobody could play lovable villains better than he could,” she wrote. “He was a dear friend. I was blessed to know him.”
Curry’s Clue co-star Michael McKean shared on X: “My last conversation with Tim Curry was about life and love and laughter. The grim physical state he found himself in has now ended, a blessing. Our blessing was that we had Tim Curry in our lives. RIP, my friend.”
