The late, great Tim Curry certainly left his mark on the acting world during his 50-year career.
A perpetual scene-stealer, the British star made his start in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a role with which he’s still synonymous today, before trying his hand at everything from chilling horror and action to family-friendly adventure and cheeky comedy.
Tim Curry on the set of The Rocky Horror Picture Show
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Alright, this might be a bit of an obvious one, but we could hardly do a round-up of Tim Curry roles without mentioning Rocky Horror, could we?
Tim originated the role of Frank-N-Furter during the musical’s original theatrical run in London, before taking the role to the big screen in the mid-1970s.
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Inarguably the cult musical’s most iconic figure, Tim also delivered a number of stand-out musical performances as Frank-N-Furter including the boisterous I Can Make You A Man, the surprisingly touching I’m Going Home and, of course, the scene-stealing Sweet Transvestite, one of the film’s signature numbers.
Annie (1982)
Tim Curry on the set of Annie with Bernadette Peters and Carol Burnett
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Carrying on with the musical theme, Tim returned to the big screen a few years after Rocky Horror when he was cast as Miss Hannigan’s henchman and brother, Rooster, in the first screen adaptation of Annie.
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For his work in Annie, Tim shared the screen with TV icon Carol Burnett, with the cast also featuring the likes of Albert Finney, Bernadette Peters and Aileen Quinn in the title role.
Now considered a cult classic, Tim chewed the scenery as the fabulous butler Wadsworth, alongside a cast that featured great character actors like Christopher Lloyd, Madeline Kahn and Eileen Brennan.
In a fun gimmick, when Clue was originally released, different endings were distributed, meaning there was a different outcome depending on where you watched it (though in modern reprints, all versions are included).
It (1990)
Tim Curry as Pennywise in It
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Bill Skarsgård’s take on Stephen King’s manifestation of evil, Pennywise The Clown, was chilling stuff, but to many, Tim’s version of the character is the real stuff of nightmares.
In 1990, he played the villainous figure in a TV miniseries based on the classic horror novel, which aired in two instalments on the US network ABC.
While the show initially divided opinion, It – and in, particular, Tim Curry’s performance – is now much more popular among fans of the horror genre.
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Home Alone 2: Lost In New York (1992)
Tim Curry on the set of Home Alone 2
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Considering where he started out, the 1990s proved to be a decade of family-friendly roles for Tim Curry, beginning with this festive sequel.
His character, Mr Hector, was a foil to Macaulay Culkin’s mischievous counterpart, originally introduced in the 1990 original.
Muppet Treasure Island (1996)
Tim Curry with Kermit The Frog and Miss Piggy in Muppet Treasure Island
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Tim was visibly having a blast when he got to play alongside The Muppets in their second big-screen literary adaptation, Muppet Treasure Island.
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Playing the swashbuckling villain Long John Silver, he claimed in his 2025 memoir Vagabond was “the most delightful cinematic experience I’ve enjoyed”.
“It’s just a world of fun and I’d been glued to the TV show. I had no hesitation about working with them,” he added. “I cannot overstate how much I adored working with the Muppets.”
This certainly shone through in his performance, which is one of the strongest aspects of the family adventure movie.
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The Wild Thornberrys (1998)
Nigel Thornberry, Tim Curry’s character in The Wild Thornberrys
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Besides his on-screen and stage career, Tim was also a prolific voice actor.
Perhaps his most famous animated role was as the patriach Nigel Thornberry in The Wild Thornberries, a character he voiced in all five seasons of the original show and its two spin-off movies.
In the US series, the Thornberry family is a group of adventurers who travel the world documenting animals in their natural habitats, with the cast also including future Mean Girls star Lacey Chabert and Red Hot Chilli Peppers musician Flea.
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Charlie’s Angels (2000)
Tim Curry in Charlie’s Angels
Tim made a small – but nonetheless memorable – appearance in the film adaptation of Charlie’s Angels, which crash-landed into cinemas in 2000.
Initially, viewers are led to believe that his character, owner of the tech company Redstar, is the villain of the piece, until several twists reveal this not to be the case.
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While there’s no denying this movie belongs to its female leads, Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu, Tim always made the most of whatever role he was given, and Charlie’s Angels was no exception.
Will & Grace (2004)
Tim Curry with John Cleese and Megan Mullally on the set of Will & Grace
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Tim’s Will & Grace stint lasted just two episodes, but it was nonetheless a memorable one, not least thanks to a prolonged kiss he shared with both Megan Mullally’s iconic character Karen Walker and his own on-screen brother, John Cleese.
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His guest appearance came towards of the show’s sixth season, as Karen prepares to marry the rich Lyle Finster.
These episodes were also notable as they marked the beginning of a multi-episode storyline featuring none other than Jennifer Lopez as herself.
Alright, this oft-forgotten video game might seem like a strange inclusion on a round-up of must-see Tim Curry roles.
But his live-action performance as Colonel Anatoly Cherdenko was so off-the-wall, so eccentric and so delightfully Tim Curry that it continues to go viral almost 20 years after the game was originally released.
Check out what we’re talking about in the above clip, where even he struggles to contain his laughter as he delivers that final utterance of “space”.
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The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do The Time Warp Again (2016)
Tim Curry as The Criminologist in The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do The Time Warp Again
After his stroke in 2012, Tim made only a few on-screen appearances, but he returned to his roots in this TV special based on The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Starring Emmy winner Laverne Cox as a new take on Frank-N-Furter, Tim took on the role of The Criminologist, played in the original film by Charles Gray.
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While Let’s Do The Time Warp Again may not have quite gone down a storm with Rocky Horror fans, there was no denying how great it felt to see Tim back on screen, particularly in the franchise that had launched him to fame more than 40 years earlier.
Tim Curry has sadly passed away at aged 80. He was a cinematic legend and undoubtedly most people will know him from his role in the iconic Rocky Horror Picture Show, a movie that shaped generations to come.
During an interview with CBS Sunday Morning to celebrate the film’s 50th anniversary, Tim revealed that he met the Princess Of Wales and her then-husband King Charles after a show he’d performed in at the Royal National Theatre.
While the future king enquired if Tim had been on television, Diana didn’t have to – as she instantly knew him from the 1975 musical movie.
The Clue actor admitted he was surprised the royal would know about the cult classic, telling her: “I don’t suppose you saw it.”
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“Of course I did,” she apparently responded, quipping: “It quite completed my education.”
Tim had previously spoken to the Fresh Air radio show about his royal encounter during an interview from earlier this year.
He explained that Diana had requested to meet him after he performed in a production of Love For Love in Vienna, where she and Charles were guests of honour.
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“She was a very funny girl, and a very beautiful one, and sort of the – a very wicked smile came with that sentence,” he recalled. “She was great fun.”
Tim then revealed that Princess Margaret had also been to see the Rocky Horror theatre show in the early 70s before it was adapted for the big screen, and “had a wonderful time”.
Elsewhere in his CBS interview, Tim said the enduring appeal of the movie musical was that it permits people to “say the stuff they always wanted to say”.
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Tim Curry as Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show
20th Century Fox/Michael White Prods/Kobal/Shutterstock
The Rocky Horror Picture Show first began as a stage musical created by Richard O’Brien. While the theatre show was a word-of-mouth hit, the 1975 film adaptation was met with poor reviews and was a box office bomb.
However, thanks to its cult following and midnight screenings, The Rocky Horror Picture Show has become the longest-running theatrical release in history, with showings happening worldwide for five decades.
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The camp classic is still parodied, revered and homaged to this day, with Sabrina Carpenter being the latest star to give a nod to the film in her Tears music video.
A documentary about The Rocky Horror Show, entitled Strange Journey, premiered at the SXSW festival earlier this year, directed by Richard O’Brien’s son Linus.
