British stage, film and TV actor Tim Curry, best known for his role in the cult classic “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” has died at age 80 at his Los Angeles-area home.
Longtime manager and friend Marcia Hurwitz said Curry died peacefully at his Toluca Lake home. Details about a cause of death were not immediately available.
LAPD responded to Curry’s residence late Tuesday for a death investigation, the agency said. No foul play was suspected.
Curry, who suffered a stroke in 2012, played Dr. Frank N. Furter in the 1975 musical comedy film. He also played the terrifying clown Pennywise in the 1990 film based on Stephen King’s novel “It” and was Mr. Hector in “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.”
Curry got his start on stage in the West End London production of “Hair” in 1968. He was part of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” musical when it began its stage run at the Royal Court’s Theatre Upstairs in London. The show brought him to Los Angeles for performances at The Roxy on Sunset Boulevard before it was turned into a mid-1970s film that retains a cult following today.
The Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles first screened the film on a regular basis in 1976 and still offers weekly showings.
Curry continued performing on stage, including in Broadway productions, as his TV and film career accelerated in the 1970s and 1980s with several villainous roles.
“I like playing the more curious corners of the human mind and human behavior, partly because they’re a tad more interesting,” Curry told The Associated Press in 1993.
Curry was born in Cheshire, England and was the son of a Navy chaplain and school secretary. His father died when he was 12.
He started acting in his teens when he attended a school for sons of Methodist ministers.
“I was lucky that it was a liberal kind of school; many of them in England are rather Dickensian,” he told The Associated Press. “There was a lot of theater, and I sang, too; I had been singing in church from the age of 7. I had enormous opportunities to express myself in that way. I just got hooked, really.”
Curry graduated from the University of Birmingham and found stage success in London.
In addition to his role as the smug concierge in a futile struggle with Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin McCallister in “Home Alone 2,” Curry portrayed Wadsworth the butler with a secret past in 1985’s “Clue.” He was a wealthy philanthropist in 1995’s “Congo” and starred opposite Carol Burnett in the movie “Annie.”
Curry talked about his Hollywood experience in a 1996 AP interview.
“Hollywood tends to use European actors, especially English ones, as villains because they prefer heroes to be Americans,” Curry said. “I think we come with a certain amount of style, which is hard for American actors to acquire. They have to choose early on between New York and the theater vs. Hollywood and television and movies. In England there is still regional theater, where you can be assured work for several years doing all kinds of things.”
Curry also took on several voice-acting roles, including in “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” “The Wild Thornberrys” and “The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius.”
Curry, who never married and had no children, was private about his personal life, but he shared some personal thoughts in his memoir “Vagabond: A Memoir” He was convinced to tell his story because of so many moving encounters with fans, Curry wrote.
“The notion that my experiences might resonate helps me persevere — if they strike a chord with only one teenager, alone with a book in his room, as I so often was; or that young woman reading this on an interminably long bus ride; or that older queen, hopefully still in his fishnets, who saw “Rocky Horror” upstairs at the Royal Court; or that middle-aged mother who organizes ‘Clue’ watching parties and refuses entry to anybody out of costume; or that buttoned-up bank clerk who relishes musicals; or that woman who kicked me out of the Waverly for being myself.”
Curry is survived by his nieces, Kate Lewis, Julia and Patrick Bullman and great nieces, Josephine and Georgina and nephew, Mark Lewis