Stars of stage and screen have paid tribute to cult British actor Tim Curry, who has died at the age of 80.
“What I loved about him most was his heart,” said Oscar-winner Susan Sarandon, who co-starred with him in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Curry, who was born in the north-western English town of Warrington in 1946, passed away peacefully at his home in Los Angeles on Tuesday, said his manager. He had used a wheelchair since suffering a major stroke in 2012.
In a career spanning six decades, the prolific actor left his mark on both theatre and film, ranging from Home Alone 2 and Annie to Stephen King’s It and The Hunt for Red October.
Rocky Horror star Tim Curry dies at 80
But he was perhaps best known for his zany role as the cross-dressing Dr Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
He first played the part on stage before the movie adaptation that propelled him to cult stardom.
Sarandon, who played the heroine Janet Weiss in movie, praised Curry as “a funny, sexy, original”.
“Thank you Tim for meaning so much to so many people.”
Curry’s longtime manager and friend Marcia Hurwitz confirmed he “passed away peacefully at his home in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles on August 25”.
Australian actress Nell Campbell, who starred alongside Curry in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, told the BBC: “I feel like the head of our family has just died because he was the head of the Rocky Horror family.”
Welsh actor Luke Evans, who played Frank-N-Furter in a Broadway revival, called Curry “a force, a bright fierce flame, an exquisite charm”.
In a letter he recently wrote to Curry, Evans thanked him for his fearlessness and for “creating something so enduring, and for inspiring generations of actors to be a little braver than they thought they could be”.
The official Rocky Horror Picture Show on Broadway account similarly thanked the late actor for “giving the world a little more freedom, a little more fearlessness, and through the tears in our eyes, the courage to BE IT” – a nod to Curry’s delivery of the famous line from the musical: “Don’t dream it, be it.”
In a statement to Entertainment Weekly, writer and composer Richard O’Brien, who co-wrote the musical and film, remembered the actor as “a wonderful man by nature who was also a wonderful performer”.
“He never sought attention and never put himself before the roles that he played,” O’Brien said. “He was, in short, a good egg and class act.”
