Tim Curry (RIP) Breaks Down His Most Iconic Roles: Rocky Horror, Clue, Muppet Treasure Island & More

Upon hear­ing of Tim Cur­ry’s death last week, some of us could recall hav­ing seen him on stage: in Amadeus or Spa­malot on Broad­way, per­haps, though he also drew acclaim in the work of Stop­pard, Brecht, and Shake­speare. For many more of us — per­haps all of us — it was his most mem­o­rable film and tele­vi­sion per­for­mances that sprang to mind. To an extent, which ones are most mem­o­rable depends on the view­er. Some will for­ev­er remem­ber Cur­ry as DJ John­ny LaGuardia in Times Square, the deceit­ful Roman­ian phil­an­thropist in Con­go, the arch-neme­sis King Chick­en on Duck­man, or even as the Bard him­self in the series Will Shake­speare.

More will remem­ber him as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the cross-dress­ing mad sci­en­tist from the plan­et Trans­sex­u­al at the cen­ter of the stage musi­cal The Rocky Hor­ror Show as well as its film adap­ta­tion The Rocky Hor­ror Pic­ture Show. The lat­ter end­ed up becom­ing the much larg­er-scale cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­non, still screened at mid­night to this day, more than half a cen­tu­ry after its the­atri­cal release.

In that time, the audi­ence-par­tic­i­pa­tion rit­u­als have grown elab­o­rate enough to over­shad­ow the con­tent. Still, if you real­ly try to focus on the action onscreen, you’ll notice the remark­able extent to which — even now that all the tropes of sci­ence-fic­tion B movies, nine­teen-fifties teen cul­ture, and delib­er­ate glam-rock excess have become bare­ly rec­og­niz­able — Cur­ry’s per­for­mance remains vital.

Just six months ago, the Acad­e­my of Motion Pic­ture Arts and Sci­ences put up a video in which Cur­ry looks back at his defin­ing roles. The list begins, nat­u­ral­ly, with Rocky Hor­ror, but also includes his turns as the Lord of Dark­ness in Leg­end (which he was offered after Rid­ley Scott saw him as Dr. Frank-N-Furter), Pen­ny­wise in Stephen King’s It (now regard­ed as the ne plus ultra of evil clown char­ac­ters), and Long John Sil­ver in Mup­pet Trea­sure Island (his per­son­al favorite of his movies). We’re also told of parts he did­n’t get, like Ian Mal­colm in Juras­sic Park, for which he was con­sid­ered, or — more tan­ta­liz­ing­ly — Han­ni­bal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, whom he “des­per­ate­ly want­ed to play.” He also offhand­ed­ly men­tions that, in addi­tion to Clue’s three exist­ing end­ings, he also shot a fourth in which his but­ler is revealed to have com­mit­ted all the mur­ders. “Of course, that was my favorite,” he says. Alas, “they nev­er released that end­ing, because they thought it was too obvi­ous.”

via Laugh­ing Squid

Relat­ed con­tent:

How Rocky Hor­ror Became a Cult Phe­nom­e­non

Rare Inter­view: Tim Cur­ry Dis­cuss­es The Rocky Hor­ror Pic­ture Show, Dur­ing the Week of Its Release (1975)

1978 News Report on the Rocky Hor­ror Craze Cap­tures a Teenage Michael Stipe in Drag

The Rocky Hor­ror Pic­ture Show Is Now a Retro Video Game

Ray Liot­ta (RIP) Talks About His Most Mem­o­rable Per­for­mances: Some­thing Wild, Good­fel­las, Field of Dreams, and More

“I Saw the Future”: Rut­ger Hauer (RIP) Remem­bers His Most Mem­o­rable Role in Blade Run­ner

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. He’s the author of the newslet­ter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Sum­ma­riz­ing Korea) and Kore­an Newtro. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.