Tim Curry, Rocky Horror and It Star, Dies Aged 80

Tim Curry, the actor who made his name as the flamboyant Dr Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Show, has died aged 80. Reports say he died at his home in Los Angeles; his manager confirmed to Variety that he died peacefully. No cause of death is known as yet.

Curry’s best-known roles all required considerable physical transformation. Frank-N-Furter, the deranged scientist of Rocky Horror, saw him in garish makeup, stockings and suspenders on stage (the show debuted in 1973) and in the 1975 film adaptation. In Ridley Scott’s fantasy Legend (1985) he played the Lord of Darkness with giant horns and scarlet skin, and in 1990 he was given full-face clown makeup to play Pennywise in the TV miniseries It, based on Stephen King’s novel.

A career across stage, film and television

Born in 1946, Curry earned a degree in drama and English from the University of Birmingham in 1968 and began a stage career. His first significant role was in the original cast of the first West End production of Hair in 1968, where he met Richard O’Brien, who later cast him in The Rocky Horror Show. He went on to play Tristan Tzara in Tom Stoppard’s Travesties 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.

In film he played Robert Graves in Jerzy Skolimowski’s The Shout and Jeremy in the Ian McEwan-scripted drama The Ploughman’s Lunch, before working largely in comedies such as Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Muppet Treasure Island and Scary Movie 2. He also provided voiceovers for animated films.

Four decades on television

Curry was a regular presence on television for more than four decades, playing William Shakespeare in John Mortimer’s 1978 six-part biography of the playwright, Bill Sikes in the 1982 US adaptation of Oliver Twist and the wizard Trymon in the 2008 adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s The Colour of Magic. He voiced characters in animated series such as Duckman, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Mask and Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and took guest roles in Psych, Poirot and Criminal Minds.

In 2012 he had a stroke while receiving a massage and underwent brain surgery; he was left with mobility issues and his short-term memory was affected. He released a memoir, Vagabond, in 2025, and told the Guardian that year: “I’ve had the opportunities, and I’m still showing up.”

Tributes

Luke Evans, who played Frank-N-Furter in a recent Broadway production of The Rocky Horror Show, called Curry “a force, a bright fierce flame” and “an inspiration”, adding: “There will only be one Tim Curry.” Susan Sarandon, his co-star in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, called him a “funny sexy original”, and Carol Burnett, who appeared with him in Annie, wrote that “nobody could play lovable villains better than he could”.