Tim Curry appeared frail in wheelchair as he surfaced in LA before death at age 80… amid brutal decline after near-fatal stroke
Tim Curry appeared frail on an outing in Los Angeles in April, four months before his death on Tuesday at 80.
Curry found stardom in 1975 as Dr Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which quickly made him an icon especially among the LBGTQ community.
Yet as his fame grew, the actor, who relocated to LA in 1988, never forgot his British roots.
And in what turned out to be one of his last public outings, he enjoyed a trip to a local store that specialized in food and tasty treats beloved by the Brits.
With the assistance of a caregiver, Curry, who was in a wheelchair, spent time inside the Friar Tuck Shoppe next to the popular Robin Hood British Pub in Sherman Oaks.
The star had with him a colorful floral bag from London’s flagship department store Harrods in which to place his purchases.
Tim Curry, who died Tuesday age 80, appeared frail on a rare public outing in April this year after being left wheelchair-bound by a near-fatal stroke in 2012
With the assistance of a caregiver, Curry spent time inside the Friar Tuck Shoppe that specializes in British food and tasty treats in LA’s Sherman Oaks neighborhood
Curry found stardom in 1975 as Dr Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which quickly made him an icon especially among the LBGTQ community
The Daily Mail has contacted Curry’s representative for comment.
Tributes poured in following news of his passing, including one from his Clue co-star Michael McKean who gave an insight into Curry’s final days.
‘My last conversation with Tim Curry was about life and love and laughter,’ McKean shared.
‘The grim physical state he found himself in has now ended, a blessing,’ he added. ‘Our blessing was that we had Tim Curry in our lives. RIP, my friend.’
Another of his Clue co-stars Lesley Ann Warren also paid sweet tribute.
‘My dear companion in crime, the brilliant, hilarious, hysterically funny , magician of artistry has left us,’ she said.
‘What an unbelievable joy to have shared a sound stage with him and to engage with such a master talent. I adored him. Bless his wild and inspired soul. Love you Tim.’
He turned 80 on April 19, four days before St George’s Day, and was glimpsed around that time stopping off at a British goods market in the San Fernando Valley
Curry, who has been wheelchair-bound since he suffered a stroke in 2012, kept a colorful floral Harrods bag slung festively from one of the handlebars
In spite of his heavily-lidded eyes and the general impact of the stroke on his health, Curry retained a dapper elan in a stylish stripped button-up shirt
Amid the flood of tributes he received after his death was an X post by his Clue co-star Michael McKean, who made reference to his punishing final decline
‘My last conversation with Tim Curry was about life and love and laughter,’ wrote McKean: ‘The grim physical state he found himself in has now ended, a blessing’
He offered a frank account of his stroke in an interview he gave last year, crediting the masseuse who spotted the unfolding crisis with saving his life
No foul play is suspected in Curry’s death.
Last year, the Home Alone 2: Lost In New York star offered a frank account of his major stroke which happened while he was getting a massage.
‘It was so strange,’ Curry told CBS Sunday Morning in October 2025. ‘I was having a massage and the guy who was giving me a massage said, “I’m worried about you, I think we should call a doctor.”
‘I felt fine, I had no symptoms that I was aware of, but clearly he had noticed some.’
Curry went on: ‘He called 911 and an ambulance came and they carried me down the stairs of my house on a stretcher and put me in an ambulance and gave me morphine, which was interesting. I wasn’t in pain.
‘I was extremely nervous because I didn’t know what was going on. They didn’t know I’d had a stroke and I didn’t know either.’
He said that when doctors told him he had suffered a stroke, he ‘thought immediately’ of his father, James Curry.
His dad had a stroke in 1958 at age 49 and passed away a few weeks later from complications of pneumonia. Curry was about 12 years old at the time.
‘I knew that a lot of people didn’t survive a stroke, and that he was an exception, and so I was scared,’ he recalled on the CBS show.
Weeks after the sighting at the Friar Tuck Shoppe, Curry reunited with another Clue castmate, Lesley Ann Warren, to appear at a 40th anniversary screening of the film
Curry said he had brain surgery following his stroke and was in hospital for ‘about a month’ afterwards for rehabilitation.
‘I had to learn how to speak again, that was very weird,’ he shared. ‘I hated not being able to speak because I speak a lot. I have to be told to shut up a lot. I love words, I love to communicate.’
The star began his career in the theatre in London’s West End, joining the cast of the musical Hair when he was 22 and staying with it for two years from 1968 to 1969.
Even after he found fame, he continued to appear on stage. On Broadway he earned three Tony Award nominations for playing Mozart in Amadeus in 1981 and for the musicals My Favorite Year in 1992 and Eric Idle’s Spamalot in 2005.
HIs big screen roles included The Hunt for Red October in 1990, 1993’s The Three Musketeers and 1996’s Muppet Treasure Island along with the 2000 big screen reboot of Charlie’s Angels and Scary Movie 2 in 2001.
