Thanks for everything, Tim Curry
We lost Tim Curry this week. He died at age 80.
Tim Curry knew exactly what he was — a showman. He wasn’t going to win you over with the subtlety of his acting. He was going to suck you in with a knowing smile and a plummy delivery. He wasn’t a character actor — he was just an actor with and endless amount of character.
Like so many of my generation, I was introduced to Tim Curry through The Rocky Horror Picture Show, in my case at midnight audience-participation screenings in the college town of State College, Pennsylvania. The juxtaposition of straightlaced Brad and Janet (Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon) being introduced to a sweet transvestite’s pursuit of absolute and unbounded sexual pleasure was just what a repressed post-sixties generation of college students needed.
Tim Curry was Frank-n-Furter, the leader of the band of aliens in the show. And I became him. I was built similarly, with a halo of curly hair, generous lips, and some legs that looked pretty good in fishnets, so cosplaying the character was practically obligatory. Regrettably, no photos of me from that era survive. Let’s just say that unleashing that side of me gave me a confidence I otherwise lacked in social situations. Girls liked it. I was no showman, but if Tim Curry could do that, I could at least pretend for a few minutes.
What made Tim special
Playing the flamboyant lead in Rocky Horror was a risk for Curry’s career, and he knew it. He never got too many chances to play meaty dramatic roles after that.
But over-the-top self-satirizing villains and comic leads — that became his specialty. Whether it was the butler in “Clue” or King Arthur on Broadway in “Spamalot” or Long John Silver in “Muppet Treasure Island,” he threw himself headlong into the part. He didn’t worry about looking silly or overacting, because none of that mattered. He was there to entertain us, and always, always did.
In every performance there was something in the voice, in the eyes, that told you he was in on the joke. A smile hiding nearly invisible, a richly portrayed cowardice, the resonant baritone delivery — always something there to savor in every performance. You despised his villains and laughed at his absurd comic leads and knew you were getting a peek at somebody who was having a very good time and inviting you to be part of it.
Alas, no more. No more shivering in antici . . . . . pation. But we did share an awful lot of smiles.
No one else could have made that part in Rocky Horror into the cult classic that it was.
What guy. We’re just lucky we spent some time watching him do what no one else really ever could — be the inimitable Tim Curry.