Note: Tribute originally published on David’s Substack.
Tim Curry was such a unique, specific talent that I scarcely believe Hollywood ever really knew what to do with him. Despite being adept at comedy, drama, and song and dance, he seemed like a man out of time. Imagine Curry in the golden era of the musical (the ‘30s through the ‘50s). It’s impossible to think that he wouldn’t have been one of the biggest stars in the world. Alas, while Curry made his name in an on-screen musical, by the time of his ‘70s breakthrough, the genre was on the wane, breathing its last glorious gasp in 1978 with Grease.
While Curry was more than adept at comedy and skilled in drama as well, the relative death of the musical genre left him a man without an anchor. There was no place to show off his remarkable soprano outside of the West End stage in London and under the lights of Broadway.
With his stage debut on the West End in Hair, Curry quickly became a theater staple. Over the next five years, he performed in Titus Andronicus, Loot, Cinderella, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in which he played the impish Puck. My mind can barely contain the thought of Curry as Puck. There could be no better casting. But it was 1973’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show that elevated Curry to icon status. As Dr. Frank-N-Furter, Curry helped develop the role from conventional to risqué. Two years later, Curry would reprise the role on screen in the film version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. In the history of musicals, there has seldom been an introduction quite like Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s. Coming on like an unholy mix of David Bowie, Alice Cooper, and Sylvester, Curry stopped the film in its tracks with his extraordinary rendition of Sweet Transvestite.
It was, and is, a number that still has to be seen to be believed. One has to remember that this was 1975, and transvestites weren’t exactly acceptable in the mainstream. While the film version wasn’t a success upon its initial release, it became the biggest midnight movie in history, eventually grossing well over one hundred million dollars. Curry may not have been the lead, but he was most certainly the show. Immediately, Curry became a hero to the queer community, even if he kept his own disposition intensely private for his entire life. In less than four and a half minutes, Tim Curry became an icon.
Curry’s next success would come in the theater with the role of Tristan in Tom Stoppard’s Travesties. Curry received strong notices in both the West End and on Broadway for his performance. Back in film, Curry was excellent in The Shout as Robert Graves, a character who served as a framing device in the psychological horror film starring Alan Bates as a man who can kill by raising his voice. If ever a film deserved a cult following, it is The Shout. The Criterion Collection agrees with me and released a pristine Blu-ray/DVD version of the film, with all the extras one could ask for.
Because he was capable of doing most anything, Curry tried his lot in the area of pop music, releasing three albums from 1978 to 1981. The most successful of the trio was 1979’s Fearless, which nearly made the Top 50 on Billboard’s album charts, and produced the Hot 100 charting single, I Do the Rock. 1981’s Simplicity didn’t build upon the success of Fearless, and Curry never recorded another pop album again.
Between album releases, Curry originated the role of Mozart in the heralded play Amadeus. Curry earned a Tony nomination for his performance as the mischievous composer, but would lose the award to his co-star, Ian McKellen, who played the villainous Salieri.
Curry’s on-screen acting career suffered for the stupidest of reasons: he was so gifted and eccentric that casting directors didn’t know how to fit him into roles, as if Curry couldn’t make the most of what he was given. And that was often the case with Curry. Many a time, he was the best thing in a film that underperformed at the box office and with critics.
One case in point is 1982’s Annie, directed by the great John Huston. Critics savaged the film, and it fell short at the box office, but Curry was lauded as a standout as the scheming gangster Rooster Hannigan. His performance of Easy Streets with Carol Burnett was singled out as the film’s highlight musical number.
I first encountered Curry around 1985-86 on HBO in Ridley Scott’s fantasy film folly, Legend. Starring Tom Cruise, Legend was some kind of daft take on the Jack and the Beanstalk tale. As a film as a whole, it doesn’t really work, but whenever Curry is on screen as a red-skinned, horned, demon-like character known as Darkness, the film comes alive. Legend may well be the only truly disastrous flop in the filmography of Tom Cruise, but, like Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, the film has earned a cult following due to its antagonist. As Bowie was to Labyrinth, Curry was very much the same to Legend.
That same year, Curry starred as the butler Wadsworth in the film adaptation of the popular board game, Clue. The film fared no better with critics and audiences than Legend, but Curry’s performance and his brilliant summarizing monologue near the end were singled out as the film’s high points. Just like Legend, Clue has a small but rabid following.
Switching gears entirely on TV with the critically lauded Wiseguy, Curry played Winston Newquay, a corrupt music executive who comes to loggerheads with undercover agent Vinnie Terranova (Ken Wahl). Curry was excellent in the role, and if you ever wanted the kick of watching Curry trade lines with Debbie Harry (and how could you not?), this 1989 six-episode arc of Wiseguy is where to find it.
1990 would prove to be the most successful year of Tim Curry’s on-screen career. As Dr. Yevgeni Petrov, the medical officer on a Russian submarine, Curry gave a straight and solid performance across from Sean Connery in The Hunt for Red October. Better yet was his role as Pennywise in the two-part televised movie of the Stephen King novel, IT. Long before the 2017 film version and the 2025 series, Curry stoked fear in the hearts of all who watched the two-part 1990 film. As good as Bill Skarsgård has been on film and in the series, Curry set the standard as one of the most frightening monsters in Stephen King’s oeuvre.
Unfortunately, those twin triumphs didn’t springboard Curry to greater work on film and television. Much of the latter part of his career was spent classing up projects that didn’t deserve him. The laundry list includes Home Alone 2 (1992), the miserable Three Musketeers starring Kiefer Sutherland and Charlie Sheen (1993), Congo (1995), Charlie’s Angels (2000), and Scary Movie 2 (2002). His best later career film performances came in Muppet Treasure Island (1996) as the wicked Long John Silver and in Bill Condon’s terrific Kinsey (2004) as Dr. Thurman Rice, playing against type as a conservative medical professional who pushes back against Dr. Kinsey’s (Liam Neeson) groundbreaking work on sexuality.
As the quality of his on-screen opportunities dried up, Curry turned to voice work in animation. If ever someone was meant to voice an animated character, it was surely Tim Curry. His mellifluous voice graced many a Disney production, as well as other animation studios.
Thankfully, Curry always had the stage to return to for his best acting opportunities. Curry was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical for The Pirates of Penzance (1982) and Spamalot (2007). Similarly, he received Tony nominations for Best Featured Actor in My Favorite Year (1992) and Spamalot (2005). Curry’s only major on-screen nomination came, for all things, from HBO’s Tales From the Crypt (1994) in the category of Best Guest Actor.
In the world of TV and film, it’s hard not to feel cheated when it comes to Tim Curry. Sure, what’s there is choice; it’s just that there should have been so much more of it. Curry was a wildly talented artist, but his opportunities to showcase his gifts were far too sporadic. At his best, Tim Curry represented a kind of freedom. A freedom to be who you are. However eccentric, strange, or yes, queer that might be.
In a world of carbon copies, Tim Curry was an original.
Tim Curry died on August 25, 2026. He was 80 years old.
