\n\tCurry went on to a successful, varied career, immediately seeking a departure from the zany role with which he\u2019d become identified. He hit the mainstream consciousness in\u00a0Annie<\/a>\u00a0(1982), playing antagonist Rooster Hannigan, who schemed with his sister, orphanage matron Miss Hannigan (Carol Burnett), to kidnap Annie (Aileen Quinn).<\/p>\n \n\tHis villainy went to a darker place in 1990 when he appeared as the twisted Pennywise<\/a> in a two-part ABC adaptation of\u00a0It,\u00a0with more than 37 million households tuning in. He turned the traditional clown on its head and employed a low, raspy voice and New York accent.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cMy job was to give Tim the stage and not get in his way too much,\u201d\u00a0director\u00a0Tommy Lee Wallace told<\/a> THR in 2017.\u00a0\u201cHe was like Robin Williams<\/a> in the way he brought a spontaneous improvisation to the part.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tCurry was nominated for three best actor Tonys. The first was for originating the role of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1981\u2019s\u00a0Amadeus, though he lost out to co-star Ian McKellen as the composer\u2019s rival, Antonio Salieri. In 1993, he was nominated again, this time for portraying alcoholic actor Alan Swann in the musical\u00a0My Favorite Year.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tHis third nom came in 2005 for playing King Arthur in the hugely popular goofball musical\u00a0Monty Python\u2019s Spamalot, based the 1975 movie\u00a0Monty Python\u2019s Holy Grail.\u00a0Curry joined the cast when the show bowed in Chicago in 2004, and his three-year stint also included a stop in London.<\/p>\n \n\tOn adapting a film that was so popular, Curry said, \u201cIt\u2019s quite interesting because the audience always contains some core of Monty Python fans, who see stuff coming and react with great whoops of joy and then settle down to see it unfold. They are hugely welcoming, and they really want to see it happen. Happily, they\u2019re not talking along with it, because that would need a spanking.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAfter years away, he appeared in the horror film Stream, which hit theaters in August 2024.<\/p>\n \n\tTimothy James Curry was born on April 19, 1946, in Cheshire, England. His father, a Methodist Royal Navy chaplain, died when Tim was 12. Curry began his professional acting career in a 1968 West End production of\u00a0Hair\u00a0shortly after graduating from the U.K.\u2019s University of Birmingham.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tIt was during this production that he met actor Richard O\u2019Brien, who wrote\u00a0The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Curry helped the playwright develop his mad scientist, originally envisioned as a lab coat-wearing German. With Curry\u2019s help, the character eventually dons a corset and fishnet stockings and speaks \u201clike the queen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in 1975\u2019s \u2018The Rocky Horror Picture Show.\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotofest<\/p>\n \n\tThe campy plot revolves around a \u201csquare\u201d couple, Brad and Janet (Bostwick and Sarandon in the film), who are stranded in the rain when their car breaks down. Curry\u2019s heavily made-up, outrageous scientist from the town of Transsexual, Transylvania shows them around his maze-like home and lab where he is building, Frankenstein-style, a buff man named Rocky (Peter Hinwood).<\/p>\n \n\tMade for just $1.2 million, the musical underwhelmed during its original run, but it would became a cult classic known for its raucous late-night screenings. It played in theaters for years \u2014 in fact, it\u2019s got to be still playing somewhere \u2014 and brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in its various incarnations.<\/p>\n \n\tAt some point, Princess Diana requested to meet Curry. As he later recounted, he met her in a receiving line, where she asked, \u201cYou were in\u00a0The\u00a0Rocky Horror Show, weren\u2019t you?\u201d and he said, \u201cYes, I was, but I\u2019m sure that you haven\u2019t seen it.\u201d She replied with a laugh, \u201cOh, yes, it quite completed my education.\u201d Curry later told NPR of the encounter, \u201cShe was a very funny girl and a very beautiful one, and a very wicked smile came with that sentence.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tCurry moved to Los Angeles in hopes of advancing his movie career. He eventually became known for buying and renovating homes in the city and also for his love of gardening that was inspired by his father. Yet while his fame continued to grow, he remained relatively private, rarely discussing personal details in interviews.<\/p>\n \n\tIn\u00a0Clue\u00a0(1985), based on the board game, he turned in a physical comic performance as Wadsworth, the butler who investigates the murder of Mr. Boddy (Lee Ving) alongside the likes of fellow suspects Mrs. Peacock (Eileen Brennan<\/a>), Mrs. White (Madeline Kahn) and Professor Plum (Christopher Lloyd).\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tCurry took a subtler turn in the Cold War action-drama\u00a0The Hunt for Red October\u00a0(1990) as Dr. Petrov, a loyal Soviet physician onboard the submarine helmed by Sean Connery<\/a>\u2018s Captain Ramius.<\/p>\n \n\tHe again showed his comedic range in the family-friendly\u00a0Home Alone 2: Lost in New York\u00a0(1992) as the nosy concierge who works at the hotel where young Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) is staying as he tries to avoid bad guys Harry and Marv (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern).<\/p>\n \n\tIn\u00a0The Three Musketeers\u00a0(1993), Curry played a repugnant villain fans loved to hate \u2014 Cardinal Richelieu, whose plot against the French king is opposed by Aramis (Charlie Sheen), Athos (Kiefer Sutherland), Porthos (Oliver Platt) and D\u2019Artagnan (Chris O\u2019Donnell). Likewise, he was an antagonist in the 2000 film reboot of\u00a0Charlie\u2019s Angels.<\/p>\n \n\tOther memorable film roles included a swashbuckling Long John Silver in\u00a0Muppet Treasure Island (1996); archvillain Major Vladakov in the comedy\u00a0McHale\u2019s Navy\u00a0(1997); and Herkermer Homolka, a philanthropist who\u2019s in over his head in the jungle, in Michael Crichton\u2019s\u00a0Congo\u00a0(1995).<\/p>\n \n\tOn television, Curry starred as the Bard in the 1978 British miniseries\u00a0Will Shakespeare\u00a0and was nominated for an Emmy in 1994 for playing an entire murderous family (mother\/father\/sister\/daughter) in the Tales From the Crypt\u00a0episode \u201cDeath of Some Salesmen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tHe also starred as the butler Mr. French on a short-lived 2002 reboot of the 1960s sitcom\u00a0Family Affair.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cEric Idle [of Monty Python] and I always have this greeting when we see each other: We shake hands and say, \u2018Butlers and villains,’\u201d Curry once said<\/a> on\u00a0The View. \u201cI think it happens to a lot of European actors [when they come to the U.S.], particularly if you\u2019ve never established yourself as a romantic leading man. The fact is, though, the bad guys are always much better written than the good guys, and they\u2019re kind of irresistible to play.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHe was a talented voice actor, winning a Daytime Emmy in 1990 for playing Captain Hook on Fox\u2019s\u00a0Peter Pan and the Pirates. He also voiced the evil and destructive spirit Hexxus in\u00a0FernGully: The Last Rainforest\u00a0(1992) and Nigel Thornberry, Eliza\u2019s dad, on Nickelodeon\u2019s\u00a0The Wild Thornberries.<\/p>\n \n\tCurry\u2019s larger-than-life characters often stole the show on TV, in particular on\u00a0Monk, where in one episode he played detective Adrian Monk\u2019s (Tony Shalhoub) morbidly obese archenemy Dale \u201cthe Whale\u201d Biederbeck in 2004 (the part was played at different times by Adam Arkin and Ray Porter).\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tOn\u00a0Psych, he guest-starred as Nigel St. Nigel, a Simon Cowell-esque reality show judge who thinks his life is in danger.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tOn the opposite end of the comedy-drama spectrum, he gave an emotional performance in a 2010 two-episode arc on CBS\u2019\u00a0Criminal Minds\u00a0as a tormented serial killer and rapist driven by childhood traumas.<\/p>\n \n\tCurry also had a turn as a recording artist, releasing three rock albums in the late 1970s and early \u201980s and even going on tour. But it was for his voice work that he was nominated for a Grammy in 2006, for best spoken word album for children, with the audiobook of Lemony Snicket\u2019s\u00a0A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning\u00a0alongside Meryl Streep, Jim Carrey, Jude Law and producer David S. Rapkin.<\/p>\n \n\tIn 2012, Curry suffered a stroke that required him to use a wheelchair, though he kept his condition private for nearly a year before it was widely reported. He continued to do voice work, including on the TV series\u00a0Star Wars: The Clone Wars\u00a0as Chancellor Palpatine and Darth Sidious (replacing Ian Abercrombie, who died in 2012).\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tHe served as narrator (aka The Criminologist) on Fox TV\u2019s 2016 adaptation\u00a0The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let\u2019s Do the Time Warp Again, with Laverne Cox taking over as Dr. Frank-N-Furter.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201c[Curry] would come to rehearsals when he himself wasn\u2019t rehearsing and just sit in the middle of the room and tell us industry stories and make us laugh,\u201d castmember Ryan McCartan told<\/a>\u00a0THR\u00a0at the time. \u201cHaving him there as a godfather of the whole thing was such validation for us to advance confidently. His presence made a huge difference.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tCurry never married and had no children.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p>\n