Tim Curry, ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ star, dead at 80

Tim Curry, the British actor best known for playing Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Pennywise in It, died at his home in Los Angeles. He was 80.

His death was confirmed to Global News by his longtime agent and manager, Marcia Hurwitz, who said the actor “passed away peacefully at his home in Toluca Lake” on Tuesday.

The cause of death was not immediately available.

In 2012, Curry suffered a life-altering stroke that put him in a wheelchair and told The New York Times last year that he had “been recovering for quite a long time.”

Curry told the outlet that the stroke, which paralyzed the actor’s left side, occurred on July 12, 2012, while he was having a massage and brought him “way too close to death.”

“It’s a curious experience,” he said. “I didn’t know it was happening at the time. They told me at the hospital and operated on my brain and removed, I think, two blood clots, which is a sort of grim picture. I found that very difficult to cope with as an image. There’s a German play called ‘Danton’s Death,’ where he says, ‘If you cut off the top of my head and paddled around in my brains, you would never know me.’ And it felt like somebody had paddled around in my brain.”

He also said that his father had suffered from a stroke when he was 45 and later died from pneumonia.

“And I kept remembering my mother talking about going to see him in hospital. He could only blink for yes and no. I dreaded that. I didn’t want that to happen to me. It was very peculiar not to be able to speak, and to find a voice again was difficult,” he added.

Known for his arch humour and gift with voices, Curry earned three Tony nominations — for Spamalot, My Favorite Year and Amadeus — and an Emmy nod in 1994.

Curry was well-known for his role as the Transylvanian Frank-N-Furter in the sci-fi rock musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which premiered in 1973 at the Royal Court Theatre in London. He went with it to Broadway and then starred in the 1975 cult classic movie alongside Barry Bostwick, Meat Loaf and Susan Sarandon.

His screen credits included starring as Pennywise in the 1990 miniseries version of Stephen King’s horror novel It and the villain fans loved to hate, Cardinal Richelieu, in The Three Musketeers in 1993 with Kiefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen and Chris O’Donnell.

He went on to play the concierge that tried to stop Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin McCallister from taking advantage of New York’s swanky Plaza Hotel in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Curry was also Wadsworth, the butler with a secret past, in Clue, based on the board game.

He also played Roger Corwin, the head of communications-satellite company Redstar, in the 2000 film reboot of Charlie’s Angels.

Other roles included Long John Silver in 1996’s Muppet Treasure Island, a wealthy philanthropist in 1995’s Congo and opposite Carol Burnett in the movie Annie.

Curry was also known for his voice-acting roles in children’s TV series, including Star Wars: The Clone Wars, The Wild Thornberrys and The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius.

Following a break from live-action roles, Curry went on to play a plague doctor-masked man in a wheelchair in 2024’s horror action film, Stream.

Curry is survived by his nieces, Kate Lewis, Julia and Patrick Bullman and great nieces, Josephine and Georgina and nephew, Mark Lewis

—With files from The Associated Press