He voiced The Joker in just four episodes of Batman: The Animated Series before producers found his performance to be too scary for children. He was going to play Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit but producers found his performance… too scary for children! So he decided to play a lovable clown, in a performance that was… too scary for children, and adults for that matter! It takes a special kind of actor to have so many great performances under his belt that it is hard to figure out which role is truly the most iconic. But in recent years we have HEARD more from him than seen him due to a tragic health issue, so now we must ask that ever important question: What Happened to Tim Curry?!
But as always let us begin at the beginning and the beginning began on his birthday, April 19, 1946 in Grappenhall, Cheshire, England. He would grow up with a passion for singing in the local Church where his father was a Methodist Minister, graduating from the University of Birmingham with a degree in English and Drama. He would land his first stage role in a production of Hair by lying about his resume. The production was looking for someone with stage experience and who was already part of the Stage Union (Actor’s Equity), so Curry simply told them that he was! And they believed him! And he got the part! By the time the producers realized the truth, they were already so impressed with Curry’s performance that they kept him and even became his sponsors so he could join the union.
While working on Hair, Curry would become friends with another up and coming artist in the London theater scene. A man by the name of Richard O’Brien who was working on a script that would combine his two favorite genre’s: Science Fiction and B-Movies. Once the script was finished, Curry, who had built up quite the resume on the London stages, would run into O’Brien on the street as he had just come from the local gym saying he was looking for “a muscleman who can sing.” Curry asked why he needed to sing, and O’Brien told him about the script he had written. Curry asked to read the script with O’Brien telling him if he was interested in being in it to contact Director Jim Sharman. Well, Curry did contact Sharman after falling in love with the script and that phone call would lead to Tim Curry’s breakout role of The Rocky Horror Picture Show‘s iconic Dr. Frank N. Furter. He would reprise the role from that stage production for the movie adaptation that has gone on to be the longest running theatrical release in the history of movies as 20th Century Fox never actually pulled it from theaters. When Disney took over Fox, many feared that would be the end of the line for the films theatrical exhibition, but even as they took many other 20th Century Fox films and put them in the “vault”, they made the exception for Rocky Horror, and that is why it is still in limited release some 47 years after it premiered. And that is quite the feat considering the film was a bomb when it was first brought to audiences in 1975. The United States release was such a bomb that a planned Halloween night opening in New York was cancelled. At the time “midnight” releases were a new thing, with titles such as Pink Flamingos and Reefer Madness playing to strong numbers as the clock struck midnight. It was Fox executive Tim Deegan who came up with the idea to make Rocky Horror a midnight movie where it had its first showing on April fools Day 1976 followed by becoming the first “secret” film at the first ever Seattle International Film Festival and then becoming a staple at the Waverly Theater in New York City where the midnight screenings became the stuff of legends with the widely discussed audience participation. If you need any further proof of the films monumental impact, look no further than the greatest band in the history of the world: Tenacious D, as they released a popular cover of the iconic Time Warp in 2020.
While his stage career was still going strong, with performances as Mozart in the original stage production of Amadeus (for which he was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Lead Actor in a Play) and The Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance, and a solid solo musical career with three albums from 1978 to 1981, including the Billboard charting Fearless, his big screen career would start to take off as well. He would appear as Robert Graves in the film The Shout (1978) followed by the 1980 film Times Square. In 1982 he would appear in the stage adaptation of Annie followed by The Ploughman’s Lunch in 1983. 1985 however would prove an even bigger breakout year for Curry. First up Ridley Scott would cast Curry as “The Lord of Darkness” in his film Legend, saying he cast him after seeing Rocky Horror Picture Show and being impressed with his work in the film. While the second Curry film of 1985 would the cult classic board game adaptation Clue. Released in theaters with three different endings, with a different ending sent to each theater, the film was originally a box office bomb pulling in just $14.6 million off a $15 million budget. The role of the Butler, Wadsworth, was originally meant for Rowan Atkinson, but it was determined he wasn’t famous enough at the time so the part went to Tim Curry. And Tim Curry OWNS this role, although he later remembered the role as “exhausting”. As the butler, or who we think is the butler, dot dot dot, Curry is the window into the entire movie. He is the audience playing along at home trying to figure out if it was Mr. Green in the Library with the candlestick, or Mrs. Scarlet in the kitchen with the revolver!
After appearing as Rev. Ray Porter in Pass The Ammo (1988) Curry would take a break from film to focus on his stage work in Me and My Girl and The Art of Success before triumphantly returning as Dr. Petrov in the original (and best) Jack Ryan adventure The Hunt For Red October (1990). But it would be his role on the small screen that would continue to cement Curry’s legacy as one of the greatest character actors of all time when he would take on the role of Pennywise the clown in the original TV Mini Series adaptation of Stephen King’s IT (1990). People such as Malcolm McDowell and Alice Cooper were considered for the role, but the director had just Curry in mind, even though Stephen King says he and the rest of the crew had apprehensions about casting Curry as he was mostly known for his more comedic roles at the time. The show was a massive success pulling in over 30 million viewers while reviews were split. One person who particularly didn’t like the series calling it hammy and exaggerated: Tim Curry! He would actually not speak publicly about the series for nearly 25 years. He said he didn’t know that his portrayal of Pennywise had become so loved and iconic. He doesn’t speak often of the film, but he did partake in the recent documentary Pennywise: The Story of It which was released on Blu-ray on November 22, 2022.
Back on the big screen, Curry would appear opposite Sylvester Stallone in Oscar (1991) (underrated in our opinion) followed by Passed Away in 1992. But it would be the role he would take on later in 1992 that would introduce him to an entirely new generation of fans. How is it that he was in a movie with two very clear cut villains in the Sticky bandits, yet his performance as Mr. Hector, the Hotel Concierge at the renowned Plaza Hotel in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York comes across as the actual villain of the film?! For people like me, who were way too young to even know what a Pennywise the Clown or a sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania was, Curry’s role as the guy who discovers Kevin’s “Stolen Credit Card” sas our first introduction to the genius of Tim Curry and he both scared us with that wicked grinch like smile and made us howl with laughter when he got on his knees and told us he loved us! The Rocky Horror Picture Show may be the longest running movie of all time while many people recently discovered his phenomenal performance as Pennywise due to the big screen remakes of IT, but for kids of the 90’s like myself, there is no more iconic performance of Tim Curry, that we watch every single year, than his performance of the man who wouldn’t let Cedric (see-drick) count his tips in public (another great chance to mimic his voice here “See Drick, don’t count your tips in Public!) in Home Alone 2!
He would follow that comedic turn with another, as Mr. Jigsaw in the actually really hilarious parody film Loaded Weapon 1. This one was in the vein of the classic Zucker/ Abrams parodies and came long before the Scary Movie franchise which Curry actually was a part of when he played Professor Oldman in Scary Movie 2. If you want to laugh at a genuinely funny parody film that spoofs Action movies of the 80’s, check out Loaded Weapon 1. He would follow that comedic turn up with a trio of projects that really failed to make an impression: The Three Musketeers (1993), The Shadow (1994) (which is well-loved here on JoBlo) and Congo (1995) for which he would be nominated for his first and to date only Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor. His next role would be the one that, despite all of the iconic roles, he has said is his favorite: as Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island (1996). Curry said he loved working on something that people of all ages could enjoy, even more so, the fact that he wasn’t playing a character that people would be terrified by. But most importantly, he says he just loved working with Miss Piggy! (Im sure here you will add your commentary on the flick, I have never actually seen it!) He did more kid-friendly work when he provided the voice of Nigel Thornberry in The Wild Thornberrys, an animated series.
From there, Curry would continue his dominance on stage with Broadway productions and roles as Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (2001), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (2011), What About Dick (2012) and originating the role of King Arthur in Monty Python’s Spamalot (2004-2007) for which he was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. While his on camera roles would begin to slow down appearing in only a handful of Theatrically released films since 1996 including the big screen adaptation of hit TV series McHale’s Navy (1997) and Charlie’s Angels (2000) and the 2004 biopic Kinsey. He would take up appearing in popular TV series such as Roseanne, Monk, Will & Grace, Psyche, Criminal Minds, Dinosaurs and Tales From The Crypt for which he received his sole Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor. In 1996 he would appear in the miniseries Titanic which predated the James Cameron film by a year and would appear in a proposed Addams Family television series, yet when the series didn’t get picked up, the two hour pilot was repurposed as a direct to video film titled Addams Family Reunion which critics did not enjoy at all, yet even in their hatred, they were all united in praising Curry’s performance as Addams patriarch Gomez.
Even if you didn’t know who Tim Curry was from sight, chances are you are familiar with his iconic voice. Whether being nominated for a Grammy for the spoken word The Bad Beginning to voicing S.I.R at Disney World’s Alien Encounter or his turns in such films as Ferngully, The Pebble and The Penguin, Beauty and the Beast: the Enchanted Christmas, The Rugrats Movie and its sequel where they go to Paris. When Ian Abercrombie passed away before he could finish recording the lines spoken by Chancellor Palpatine / Darth Sidious on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Curry was brought in to voice the character. And building that vocal reputation has come in handy. Sadly in July 2012, Curry suffered a major stroke that left him without the use of his legs. Luckily his voice was unaffected and he says it was humor that truly helped him through his recovery. He says that he was grateful for the career he had and that helped him accept the reality of the effects from the stroke. But even though being confined to a wheelchair may have put a halt to a lot of his on screen appearances, except for when he was able to appear as the wheelchair bound Criminologist in the 2016 Live TV production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do The Time Warp Again, he has continued to thrive with his voice work, which is just too plentiful to really delve into here. Let us just scroll his IMDB page for a moment and marvel at the sheer number of projects this legend has brought into our homes. That, my friends, is a career to be envied.
An actor can consider themselves lucky if they have just one character that stands the test of time, Tim Curry has at the very least three (and some would say even more than that!) Sadly, health issues made Curry back away from appearing on screen, but it didn’t take away his love of performing. You can still see him out performing his songs live or catch him at one of his many convention appearances, where he loves engaging with his fans. That love and determination is why no one should give a fuck about WTF happened to Tim Curry, because he really is doing just fine!