Updated Aug. 26, 2026, 3:02 p.m. ET
Tim Curry, the actor celebrated for his roles as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the cult classic film “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and Pennywise the Clown in the 1990 version of “It,” has died. He was 80.
Curry’s representative, Sean Katz, confirmed the news to USA TODAY.
“Tim Curry, the iconic actor and entertainer globally beloved for his dynamic contributions to the stage and screen, passed away peacefully at his home in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles, on Aug. 25, 2026, confirmed by his longtime manager and friend Marcia Hurwitz,” the statement read.
“Though widely known for his inimitable, flamboyant characters and colorful stage performances, his greatest legacies to those who knew him were his curious, expansive mind and generous, gentle heart, both of which remained open and filled with anticipation until his final breath.”
Curry had been suffering from health issues in recent years and told fans in 2025 that he still struggles with mobility after a 2012 stroke.
“I still can’t walk, which is why I’m in this silly chair, and that’s very limiting,” he said during an event at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles. “So I won’t be singing and I won’t be dancing very soon. I still have real problems with my left leg.”
Tim Curry ‘Rocky Horror’ role made him a beloved icon
Curry is immortalized in cinema history as the flamboyant, fishnet-wearing “sweet transvestite” Dr. Frank-N-Furter in “Rocky Horror,” the cult classic musical costarring Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick. A B-movie riff on Frankenstein featuring beloved songs such as “The Time Warp” and “Science Fiction/Double Feature,” the film has been a midnight movie staple for more than five decades ‒ with a message that celebrates queerness, liberation and individuality.
“It’s given a lot of people permission to be themselves,” Curry told USA TODAY in an interview last fall. “To not dream it, be it, which is the motto of the movie, really. I would like to be remembered for that. But it’s good advice.”
Tim Curry movies, TV shows span five-decade career with ‘Clue,’ ‘Muppet Treasure Island’ and ‘Annie’
Curry was born April 19, 1946, in the English village of Grappenhall, Cheshire. His mother was a school secretary while his father was a Methodist chaplain in the Royal Navy. When Curry was 11, his father suffered a stroke and later died of pneumonia. He went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham and was a member of the original London cast of “Hair” shortly after graduation.
Throughout his more than five-decade career, Curry endeared himself to family audiences playing patriarch Gomez Addams in 1998’s “Addams Family Reunion,” pirate Long John Silver in “Muppet Treasure Island” and a suspicious Plaza Hotel concierge in “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.”
In addition to “Rocky Horror,” Curry often shined in the musical realm: portraying the conniving Rooster opposite Carol Burnett’s Miss Hannigan in 1982’s “Annie,” and earning a Tony Award nomination for best leading actor for Monty Python’s deeply silly Broadway adaptation of “Spamalot,” in which he played King Arthur.
Curry showed impressive range in movies as varied as “The Hunt for Red October,” “Kinsey” and Ridley Scott’s “Legend.” He was perhaps most beloved by comedy fans for playing butler Wadsworth, the effective straight man of 1985’s madcap ensemble mystery “Clue” with Madeline Kahn and Christopher Lloyd.
Of his films, the actor said he most enjoyed either “Clue” or “Oscar,” appearing alongside Sylvester Stallone in the 1991 screwball comedy. Curry was a standout in the latter as a Dr. Thornton Poole, a dialectician who falls for an ex-mobster’s daughter (Marisa Tomei).
“It’s the most like me,” Curry told USA TODAY last year. “My own personality. I didn’t have to invent him.”
Curry creepily embodied pure evil in ABC’s four-hour miniseries of Stephen King’s “It,” fueling viewers’ nightmares as the child-eating, shape-shifting entity Pennywise.
“He’s completely irredeemable,” the actor told Fangoria magazine in 2014 of the legendary horror character. “He’s the kind of chap that’s entirely without charm.”
In addition to his many screen appearances, Curry was a passionate musician who released three albums in the late 1970s and early ’80s, featuring a variety of original rock songs and covers of Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell. He was also a prominent voice actor for video games and TV, and earned a Grammy nomination for narrating an audiobook of Lemony Snicket’s “A Series of Unfortunate Events.”
Tim Curry memoir discussed private life, health
Curry never married or had children, although “I have loved and been loved,” he wrote in his 2025 memoir “Vagabond.” “And specifics about my affairs of the heart or the bedroom are ‒ respectfully ‒ none of your f—— business.
In an interview around the release of “Vagabond” last October, Curry told USA TODAY that he hoped to act onscreen again despite suffering short-term memory problems due to his stroke. Asked about his legacy, he said that he hopes it’s as an actor “but not as a movie star.”
“I don’t think of myself that way,” Curry said. “I think of myself as a working actor who isn’t working right now.”
He also got reflective about mortality while speaking to CBS Sunday Mornings last fall.
“I don’t fear death. I try to avoid it,” Curry said. “I think we all do, but I suspect that in the end, I will welcome it. I think it may be very comforting to go bye-bye, and I want to earn it.”
Contributing: Brian Truitt, USA TODAY
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