Tim Curry dead at 80: Rocky Horror Picture Show, Home Alone 2 and IT star passes away
Legendary film and TV actor Tim Curry has died at the age of 80, it was reported today.
The star, best known for playing Dr Frank-N-Furter in the cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show, died at his home in Los Angeles last night, according to TMZ.
He had been suffering with serious health issues for more than a decade and no foul play is suspected.
Curry opened up about his wellbeing last year during a special screening marking The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s 50th anniversary.
Speaking to the audience at LA’s Academy Museum, he said: ‘I still can’t walk, which is why I’m in this silly chair, and that’s very limiting.
‘So, I won’t be singing and I won’t be dancing very soon. I still have real problems with my left leg.’
The actor suffered a stroke after collapsing at his California home in 2012, leaving him partially paralysed on one side of his body and affecting his speech.
Since the stroke, which he suffered aged 66, the legendary actor remained largely out of the public eye.
Born Timothy James Curry in Cheshire, England, in 1946, Curry was the younger child of Patricia, a school secretary, and James, a Royal Navy chaplain. He had an older sister, Judith – a concert pianist, who died in 2001.
Tim Curry was best known for playing Dr Frank-N-Furter in the cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show
The 80-year-old also played the concierge in Home Alone 2
Curry in 2016 attending the red carpet premiere of The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Lets Do the Time Warp Again’ at The Roxy in West Hollywood, California
Curry grew up in Plymouth and went to boarding school. Then, in 1958, when he was just 12 years old, he lost his father to pneumonia.
The tragedy had a profound impact on his childhood.
Ten years later, the actor watched Judi Dench onstage as Sally Bowles in Cabaret at London’s Palace Theatre, a moment that cemented his ambition to become an actor.
For many years, he rarely discussed his famous appearance in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, fearing he would be typecast.
He previously recalled the opening night during the show’s Broadway debut as ‘very exciting’ but said the critics were far too harsh.
‘I had to go on the Today Show the next day and they read the reviews, which were appalling,’ he explained. ‘That brought me down. It was very cruel.’
The reviews described his performance as ‘a mixture of Joan Crawford and Burt Lancaster’ and ‘Mick Jagger, David Bowie and Marc Bolan all in one’.
He went on to join the cast of 1992’s Home Alone 2, playing the stuffy and suspicious Mr Hector.
Although he did not play a starring role, his character became one of the most memorable parts of the sequel to the popular Christmas film.
Between 2004 and 2007, Curry played King Arthur in the Monty Python musical Spamalot on stage in Chicago, Broadway and the West End
The actor in costume during the filming of the television mini-series Will Shakespeare at the ATV studios in Elstree, Hertfordshire, in June 1976
Curry was honoured with The Actors Fund Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015 at the Tony Awards Viewing Party in Los Angeles.
Between 2004 and 2007 he played King Arthur in the Monty Python musical Spamalot on stage in Chicago, Broadway and the West End.
Some of his stage credits include What About Dick? My Favorite Year and Travesties, among others.
In 2011 he was scheduled to appear in Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead, but he withdrew from the production at the last minute citing ill health.
