The Towering Tony Todd

The first time I saw Tony Todd on film was way back in 1986 with Oliver Stone’s Oscar-winning Vietnam War drama, Platoon. Todd’s part was small, but I remember thinking how physically big he seemed. I wasn’t wrong. Todd stood six feet and five inches tall—a giant in the world of actors. 

Todd’s career was that of a working actor. He was the guy who turned up on your TV screen or in your movie theater, and he may have gotten a line or two, but seldom much more. When he appeared in A-list projects like Dennis Hopper’s Colors (1988), he was billed as “Vietnam vet.” A character with no name. 

Other notable projects followed Clint Eastwood’s Bird and Lean on Me with Morgan Freeman, but Todd mainly was a guest actor or a bit player between screens big and small. That changed with Tom Savini’s largely misguided remake of George Romero’s zombie classic Night of the Living Dead in 1990. No one will mistake Savini’s film for high-class horror, but the movie gave Tony Todd a lead role. Todd took to it well, rising well above the film itself and creating a sympathetic character worth caring about in a movie that otherwise didn’t need to exist. Critics were less than kind to The Night of the Living Dead, and audiences couldn’t be bothered, so Todd’s fine work got lost in the film’s disregard. 

However, two years later, Todd, then 38, caught his big break in a horror film that would connect with audiences, Candyman. The film stars Virginia Madsen, a student at the University of Illinois working on a thesis about urban myths. Her research takes her to the infamous Cabrini-Green housing projects in Chicago, as she explores the “myth” of a man named  Daniel Robitaille—an artist from the 19th century who met a terrible fate at the hands of a lynch mob.

As the legend was told, Robitaille was the free son of a slave who fell in love with a white woman. When that woman’s father discovered the relationship, he sent out a crew of white men to run  Robitaille down. When they caught him, they cut off his hand, jammed a hook into the stump, covered him in honey, and let a nest of bees sting him to death. They then burned his corpse—supposedly on the grounds of Cabrini-Green.

Candyman was surprisingly heady stuff for a low-budget horror film. The subtext around race and lynching added a weight that could have been too heavy for the film to bear. Based on a Clive Barker short story and directed by Bernard Rose (whose films Paperhouse and Immortal Beloved should be seen), Candyman sprung from the mind of a horror master and was helmed by a man whose next project was a biopic about Beethoven, starring Gary Oldman (Immortal Beloved). The idea of a vengeful Black man as an apparition that can be summoned by repeating “Candyman” five times in a mirror and then who must shed “innocent blood” is a radical one. 

Candyman is a symbol of Black rage whose actions may be irredeemable but can also be understood. He may be the monster, but he has reasons. While Barker’s story may have been a great template and Rose’s direction far above board, the film only works if the right actor plays the Candyman. The towering Tony Todd was precisely the right actor.

Aside from his formidable physical presence, Todd was gifted with a deep, sonorous voice that, with some modest enhancement by the production team, sounded as if it was coming up from the ground. Todd’s voice and presence made him terrifying on screen. His upright posture, vocal tone, and outward calm belied the terrible acts he would commit. Todd was terrifying as hell.

I watched Candyman for the first and only time on a VCR, and the VHS tape was more than lightly used. The television I viewed the film on couldn’t have been larger than 27 inches. I pressed play in broad daylight that afternoon and went to bed that night, wondering if I’d ever sleep again.

Todd’s depiction of the Candyman was more than a Michael Myers/Leatherface kind of monster. He was as intelligent as he was unforgiving. He was the monster created by America’s original sin of slavery. It might sound embarrassing, but despite being of an adult age at the time, I couldn’t go into the bathroom, look into the mirror, and repeat the name “Candyman” five times. I say this as one of the least superstitious people on earth. Black cats can cross my path, I walk under ladders at will, and breaking a mirror only bothers me due to the cleanup. But I could not say that name while looking into a mirror more than once.

Such is the power of movies and great performances. Tony Todd in Candyman not only gave one of the greatest performances of the horror genre but also one of the most powerful and frightening performances I’ve ever seen. 

Unfortunately, Candyman did not lead to Todd getting more roles of the caliber he deserved. I don’t know if that was due to genre bias or the fact that thirty years ago, there weren’t that many great roles going to Black men other than Denzel Washington or Morgan Freeman.

Todd appeared as an imposing gangster in the tragic (but excellent) 1994 film The Crow, starring the ill-fated Brandon Lee. Two poorly executed Candyman sequels followed and produced the expected diminishing returns. Todd spent most of his post-Candyman career in the same type of roles he performed pre-Candyman: guest spots in series and small parts in movies. 

His Candyman cache often got him tapped to appear in other horror films, but none were up to the grade of the film that made him famous. Todd did find some success as Mr. Bludworth in the first two Final Destination films. Todd was not seen in the third film of the series from 2006, but he was heard as the voice of “The Devil,” a role in which his commanding tone made for a perfect fit. 

The highlights of Todd’s remaining years onscreen consisted of a return to the Final Destination series with the fifth installment, voicing a Transformer for Michael Bay, 16 voice-work episodes of The Flash, and reprising Daniel Robitaille for a cameo in the surprisingly decent Candyman remake from 2021. 

While I’ve always felt that Tony Todd deserved more opportunities worthy of his gifts, it’s no small feat to have scored one iconic role over an actor’s lifetime. Such a small percentage ever do. Still, it’s hard not to wish that better options would have come Todd’s way after the original Candyman. I wish we could bring him back and give him another shot in this modern day and age where strikingly talented Black men reaching the peak of their powers have more opportunities to make the most of it. 

Tony Todd

Tony Todd

Tony Todd

Tony Todd

Tony Todd

It was worth a try. 

Tony Todd died on November 6, 2024. He was 69 years old.