Tim Curry, unique face of the 7th art, is dead

From The Rocky Horror Picture Show to It, via Legend and The Three Musketeers, the English actor has left his mark on several generations of spectators. He died Tuesday in Los Angeles at the age of 80.

Tim Curry, sacred monster of fantasy cinema, is dead. He was 80 years old.

For generations of spectators, he will remain as the unforgettable Frank-N-Furter, the extravagant mad scientist from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. In 1975, the young English actor gave substance to this now legendary character, a mixture of provocation, glamor and excess, in the film by Jim Sharman, an adaptation of the show which had revealed him in London. With her corset, her fishnet stockings, her outrageous makeup and her unforgettable “Sweet Transvestite”, Curry transforms Frank-N-Furter into a true pop culture icon. A role that quickly goes beyond the simple framework of cinema: after its initial commercial failure in theaters, The Rocky Horror Picture Show became the emblematic film of an entire generation, a resolutely cult work, still screened today in interactive screenings around the world. And for Tim Curry, a performance forever inseparable from his legend.

But Tim Curry obviously can’t be summed up as Frank-N-Furter.

In 1985, he had fun in Cluedo, a crazy adaptation of the famous board game, where he played the butler Wadsworth. The same year, he returned to fantasy with Legend by Ridley Scott, in which he lent his features to the terrifying Dark Lord opposite Tom Cruise.

Then comes one of his most memorable roles for young audiences: he will terrify an entire generation in the costume of Pennywise (Penny Flu) in It, the mini-series directed by Tommy Lee Wallace in 1990 based on the novel by Stephen King. With his disturbing makeup and his chilling smile, Curry imposes an incarnation of the killer clown who will traumatize an entire generation.

He then continued his career between cinema, television and dubbing.

He notably appeared at Disney as the very naughty Cardinal Richelieu, in Stephen Herek’s The Three Musketeers, then made a jump into the popular comedy Maman, J’ai missed l’plane again, where he played the concierge of the New York hotel in which Kevin McCallister found refuge.

After the 2000s, Tim Curry appeared more often in supporting roles, notably in comedies like Charlie’s Angels (2000) and Scary Movie 2 (2001), while continuing to occasionally venture into more dramatic registers, with the horror film Ritual (2002) or the biopic Kinsey (2004).

He also delivers one of his last particularly striking performances in the series Criminal Minds: the actor plays the crazy killer Billy Flynn, aka “The Prince of Darkness”, in the finale of season 5 and the first episode of season 6.

But his career was disrupted by a serious stroke in 2012, which left him with serious health problems. The cause of his death was not immediately specified.