West German autograph card by Bravo, 1980. Tim Curry in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975).
West German autograph card by CBS, The Family of Music, to promote the LPs 'Read My Lips' and 'Fearless'.
A favourite villain through the combination of high eyebrows, plastic smile and exaggerated intonation
Timothy James Curry was born in Grappenhall, Cheshire, in 1946. Curry is the son of school secretary Patricia and Royal Navy chaplain James Curry. His parents were very religious. His elder sister, Judith, later became a concert pianist. Curry spent most of his childhood in Plymouth. Curry developed into a talented boy soprano. His father died of pneumonia in 1958, when Curry was 12 years old. The family moved to South London, where he attended boarding school before attending the prestigious Kingswood School in Bath, Somerset, England, till he was 18.
Deciding to concentrate on acting, he graduated from the University of Birmingham with a combined BA in English and drama in 1968. Curry's first full-time role was as part of the original London cast of the musical 'Hair' in 1968. There he met Richard O'Brien, who went on to write Curry's role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the musical 'The Rocky Horror Show' (1973). He played the character as a diabolical mad scientist and transvestite with an upper-class Belgravia accent. The show was an immediate smash hit.
The reviewer of The Guardian wrote that Curry gave a "garishly Bowiesque performance as the ambisextrous doctor." He reprised the role in Los Angeles in 1974 and on Broadway in 1975. His real breakthrough came with the film version, The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975). It made Curry a household name and gave him a cult following. Curry returned to the stage with Tom Stoppard's 'Travesties', which ran in London and New York from 1975 to 1976. Curry's performance as the famous dadaist Tristan Tzara received good reviews. 'Travesties' was also a Broadway hit, which won two Tony Awards.
Tim Curry began to appear in many films, including the British Horror film The Shout (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1978) starring Alan Bates. In 1978, his first album was released, 'Read My Lips'. He followed this up with 'Fearless' (1979) and 'Simplicity' (1981). After that, Curry focused entirely on his acting career. In 1980, he played Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the original Broadway version of 'Amadeus'. Curry was nominated for his first Tony Award (Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play) but lost out to his co-star Ian McKellen, who played Antonio Salieri. In 1982, Curry played the Pirate King in Gilbert and Sullivan's 'The Pirates of Penzance' opposite George Cole and Pamela Stephenson.
The combination of high eyebrows, plastic smile and exaggerated intonation in his words made Curry a favourite villain in films and series. He appeared as Johnny LaGuardia in Times Square (Allan Moyle, 1980), as Daniel Francis "Rooster" Hannigan in the film version of Annie (John Huston, 1982), and as Jeremy Hancock in the political film The Ploughman's Lunch (Richard Eyre, 1983). Director Ridley Scott cast Curry as The Lord of Darkness in the Fantasy film Legend (1985) starring Tom Cruise. The same year, Curry appeared in the Mystery comedy Clue (Jonathan Lynn, 1985) as Wadsworth the butler.
American postcard in the 20th Century Fox Series by the American Postcard Company, no. F21, 1982. Photo: Twentieth Century-Fox. Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter (a scientist), Nell Campbell as Little Nell (a groupie), Patricia Quinn as Magenta (a domestic) and Richard O'Brien as Riff Raff (a handyman) in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975).
British postcard by Pyramid, Leicester, no. PC 8300. Tim Curry, Patricia Quinn and Richard O'Brien in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975).
Pennywise, the child-killing clown
In the mid-1980s, Tim Curry performed in the play 'The Rivals' and with the Royal National Theatre in 'The Threepenny Opera' and other plays. From 1987 to 1988, he toured in the lead role of Bill Snibson in the musical 'Me and My Girl'. After Clue, Curry was cast in more film comedies in the late 1980s and 1990s. He played Mr. Hector the suspicious Plaza Hotel concierge in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (Chris Columbus, 1992) and Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island (Brian Henson, 1996). He also appeared in action films, such as the thriller The Hunt for Red October (John McTiernan, 1990) as Dr. Yevgeniy Petrov, The Three Musketeers (Stephen Herek, 1993) as Cardinal Richelieu, and the superhero film The Shadow (Russell Mulcahy, 1994) as Farley Claymore. In 1992, he played Alan Swann in the Broadway version of 'My Favorite Year', earning him his second Tony Award nomination (Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical).
In the early 1990s, Tim Curry was one of the first well-known Hollywood actors to lend his voice to a character in a computer game. He provided the voice of the main character in parts 1 and 3 of the Gabriel Knight series. Besides Curry, Mark Hamill (best known as Luke Skywalker) and Leah Remini also lent their voices to the series. In 1991, he won a Daytime Emmy Award for his voice role as Captain Hook in the animated series Peter Pan and the Pirates (Nobuo Tomizawa, 1990-1991). He also voiced Hexxus in the film FernGully: The Last Rainforest (Bill Kroyer, 1992), King Chicken in Duckman (Jeff McGrath, a.o., 1994–1997), Sir Nigel Thornberry in The Wild Thornberrys (Cathy Malkasian, a.o., 1998–2004), and Chancellor Palpatine / Darth Sidious in Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Dave Filoni, a.o., 2012–2014).
One of Curry's best-known television roles is as Pennywise the child-killing Clown in the Horror miniseries Stephen King's It (Tommy Lee Wallace, 1990). Although Curry has appeared in numerous television series throughout his career, he has only had lead roles in two live-action series: Over the Top (Michael Lembeck, a.o., 1997) with Annie Potts, a sitcom that he also produced, and the revival series of Family Affair (Barnet Kellman, a.o., 2002–2003). Both were cancelled after one season.
In the early 2000s, Curry was cast in the film adaptation of Charlie's Angels (Mc G, 2000) in the role of Roger Corwin, and in the parody film Scary Movie 2 (Keenen Ivory Wayans, 2001) playing Professor Oldman. Curry went on to play Thurman Rice, a supporting role in the biographical film Kinsey (Bill Condon, 2004) starring Liam Neeson, and portrayed Alexander Monro in the British black comedy Burke & Hare (John Landis, 2010). In 2004, Curry began his stage role as King Arthur in 'Spamalot' in Chicago. The musical was directed by Mike Nichols, written by Monty Python member Eric Idle and based on the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, 1975). The show successfully moved to Broadway in February 2005. and sold more than $1 million worth of tickets in its first 24 hours. His performance brought Curry a third Tony nomination, again for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical. He reprised this role in London's West End, where Spamalot opened in 2006. Curry was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award.
In 2013, Tim Curry suffered a major stroke and lost the use of his legs. Since then, Curry uses a wheelchair and shifted his work mostly to voice acting, although he has continued to perform as a singer and make appearances at fan conventions. He played the Criminologist in the TV film The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp Again (Kenny Ortega, 2016) starring Laverne Cox. In 2024, he had a cameo appearance in the Horror film Stream (Michael Leasy, 2024), providing the voice of the mask character Lockwood. Curry is working on a memoir titled 'Vagabond', scheduled to be released on 7 October 2025. Curry has never discussed his private life in interviews.
Vintage postcard by Palm Pictures, no. C 12. Tim Curry, Patricia Quinn and Nell Campbell in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975). Caption: Micro.
British poster postcard. Tim Curry in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975).
British postcard by Film Review, set H, card 1. Photo: Walt Disney / Buena Vista (UK) International Ltd. Kiefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, Chris O'Donnell, Oliver Platt, Tim Curry and Rebecca De Mornay in Three Musketeers (Stephen Herek, 1993). Caption: Disney's contemporary re-telling of a classic adventure.
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.
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