Last year, I was fortunate enough to spend some time with the veteran record and film producer Lou Adler. The 91-year-old has enjoyed a singular career that included producing Carole King and directing a Cheech & Chong movie, but there was one anecdote he shared that made his face light up more than any of the other major stars he could casually name-drop. In 1972, he recalled, he visited a tiny theatre in London and saw a madcap production that blended schlocky B-movie horror and Fifties rock’n’roll.
The film became a runaway hit, grossing over $170 million worldwide (having cost 1/100th of that) and going on to have the longest-running theatrical release in movie history. It also launched Curry, who has died at the age of 80, to international fame. The success of Rocky Horror meant that many more people around the world got to experience the unfettered joy of laying eyes on the Cheshire-born actor with the Cheshire cat grin for the very first time.
Curry had graduated from the University of Birmingham with a degree in English and drama in 1968, at the age of 22, and landed his first West End role that same year as part of the original London cast of the hit musical Hair. It was there he met Rocky Horror creator Richard O’Brien, who wrote the role of the flamboyant, cross-dressing mad scientist Dr. Frank-N-Furter specifically for him.
Curry embraced the character immediately. If it gives people permission to behave in a sexual way that they secretly want to, that’s a good thing. As long as it doesn’t hurt them.” After Rocky Horror became a hit, Curry found himself in demand both on Broadway and in Hollywood.
On the stage, he was nominated for a Tony Award three times over the course of 24 years, for roles as varied as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1981’s Amadeus, swashbuckling movie star Alan Swann in 1992’s My Favorite Year and King Arthur in 2005’s Spamalot. His film and television roles were just as eclectic. Where you remember seeing Tim Curry for the first time will likely depend on your age and tastes.
Perhaps it was as the con artist Rooster Hannigan in the 1982 movie version of Annie, or as the supercilious butler Wadsworth in manic 1985 murder mystery comedy Clue. As Cardinal Richelieu in 1993’s The Three Musketeers or as Long John Silver in 1996’s Muppet Treasure Island. Maybe his clown Pennywise, from the 1990 ABC miniseries of Stephen King’s It, has been ruining your sleep for years.
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