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After Tim Curry finished playing the flamboyant Dr. Frank-N-Furter — first onstage, then in the 1975 film “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” — the actor never returned to the role that made him famous. Not once, over decades of “Rocky Horror” revivals from the West End to Broadway, did he ever put those fishnets back on.
For Curry, who died Tuesday at 80 in Los Angeles, there were too many characters to play, and too much fun to be had, for him to spend much time looking back.
“I’ve always moved on,” Curry told me last year, sitting in the Roxy Theatre on the Sunset Strip, where he’d played Frank to great acclaim in 1974, after originating the role in London. “That was part of the attraction of being an actor. I really didn’t want to come out of the same box every time.”
Last year, as “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” was being celebrated for its 50th anniversary, he agreed to meet at the Roxy, which he called “another home for me.” The stage show there had been a local sensation, and it was clear he still had pride and great affection for his role in the movie adaptation, which remains the longest continuous theatrical release in film history.
A stroke in 2012 left him partially paralyzed, interrupting a busy acting career. But he was quick to laugh and joke as he remembered playing Frank, including his nightly entrance at the Roxy, marching down a catwalk in heels and Dracula cape. The long life that “Rocky Horror” has enjoyed as a midnight movie, with shadow casts of costumed fans lip-syncing along, was a surprise to everyone.
Frank-N-Furter was a vivid invitation to fans to let their own freak flag fly. Even amid the era’s accelerating glam rock movement, “Rocky Horror” pushed the boundaries of mainstream pop culture as an outré musical about a mad scientist with a theme song called “Sweet Transvestite.”
“It was part of the sexual revolution, really,” Curry said of the film and its audience. “Experiment was in the air and it was palpable. I gave them permission to be who they discovered they wanted to be. I’m proud of that.”
He was also pleased with other roles that showed off his gifts, including a 1982 film version of “Annie,” directed by John Huston. Curry was the playfully crooked Rooster Hannigan, and had a standout scene singing and dancing in a pencil mustache and slicked back hair to “Easy Street,” alongside Carol Burnett and Bernadette Peters.
In 1996’s “Muppet Treasure Island,” Curry was a duplicitous but layered Long John Silver, a wild-eyed pirate motivated by greed but with a hint of humanity, as he sang songs and grappled with the strange, felt-covered puppet heroes.
“I love the Muppets,” he said last year. “One of the things that used to fascinate me was that the Muppeteers, when they had the Muppet on their hand, would only speak to you as the character. If you said, ‘Hello’ or ‘What’s the weather like outside,’ they would tell you as the character.”
Never humorless, Curry played the ruthlessly villainous Cardinal Richelieu in the 1993 adaptation of “The Three Musketeers.” Conceived as a vehicle for several Brat Pack actors of the time including Charlie Sheen and Kiefer Sutherland, the film nonetheless belonged to Curry, who relished every line of villainy. The actor again stole the show with theatrical flair as the Lord of Darkness in Ridley Scott’s bleak 1985 fantasy “Legend,” playing a demonic horned figure opposite Tom Cruise.
Curry brought the same energy to more relatable comedic roles in the beloved ensemble mystery “Clue” as the highly suspect Wadsworth the Butler, and “Home Alone 2,” as a four-star hotel concierge outmatched by a 10-year-old boy hero.
“Rocky Horror” gave him a film career and even led to a music sideline, with the 1979 radio hit “I Do the Rock.”
“When I did ‘Hair’ in London, my first gig, I was not sure whether I wanted to be a singer or an actor,” Curry told me. “And doing that show kind of postponed the decision long enough and I realized that I really wanted to be an actor more than anything, and I took it very seriously. And worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I saw myself having the trajectory of a serious English actor.”
The roles turned out wilder and more varied than he might have expected but his seriousness and sense of fun never faded, pushing boundaries and himself. No one was ever bored watching Tim Curry onscreen.
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