Remembering Tim Curry: The Man Who Made Fishnets Fabulous

He gave us the sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania. He gave us a clown that still haunts our dreams. He gave us the Wicked Witch of the West and a butler with a secret. And now, Tim Curry has given us his final bow.

Tim Curry — the man who made corsets, fishnets, and a heavy layer of eyeshadow look like the height of fashion — died today at his home in Los Angeles. He was 80. His manager confirmed the news to Variety, and honestly, the world feels a little less fabulous for it.

Let’s be clear: there is no gay culture as we know it without The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and there is no Rocky Horror without Tim Curry. When he first slipped into Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s satin gloves and stiletto heels for the West End stage production in 1973 — and then again for the 1975 film — Curry didn’t just play a character. He detonated a cultural bomb. This was a man in full glam-rock drag singing about bisexuality, hedonism, and “absolute pleasure” in an era when being gay was still classified as a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association (that was declassified in 1973, for those keeping score).

In a 2025 reflection on the film’s 50th anniversary, Curry said the movie being embraced by the LGBTQ community “means a lot because I think the message is: don’t dream it, be it.” That line — spoken by a straight British actor in fishnets — became a rallying cry for generations of queer kids who needed permission to exist exactly as they were.

But Curry was far more than a one-icon wonder. Born in Grappenhall, England, in 1946, he studied drama and English at the University of Birmingham, where he earned his degree in 1968. He got his first taste of theatrical rebellion in the original London cast of Hair — a show that introduced him to Richard O’Brien, who would go on to write The Rocky Horror Show and change both their lives forever.

His career was a masterclass in reinvention. He played Mozart on Broadway in Amadeus. He was Tristan Tzara in Tom Stoppard’s Travesties. He donned giant horns and crimson skin as the Lord of Darkness in Ridley Scott’s Legend (1985). He terrified an entire generation of children as Pennywise the Clown in the 1990 TV miniseries of Stephen King’s It — a performance so iconic that Bill Skarsgård spent the 2017 remake being told he had impossibly big shoes to fill.

And then there was Clue (1985), where Curry played Wadsworth the butler with such manic, delicious energy that he turned a board-game movie into a cult classic. He voiced villains in everything from The Mask to Star Wars: The Clone Wars. He appeared in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York as the terrifying (well, kind) concierge. The man had range. He had absurd range.

Curry’s later years were marked by resilience. In 2012, he suffered a stroke while receiving a massage and underwent brain surgery. The stroke left him with mobility issues and affected his short-term memory. “It was an odd thing, because my father had a stroke and died very soon afterwards,” he told The Guardian in 2025. “I knew I had to force myself to relax and just take the opportunity to float a little.” He released his memoir, Vagabond, that same year.

When asked in 2025 about his decades-long career, he said: “I’ve had the opportunities, and I’m still showing up. You know? I think that’s what you have to do. You have to keep showing up.”

Tributes have poured in. Luke Evans, who played Frank-N-Furter in the recent Broadway production, called Curry “a force, a bright fierce flame” and “an inspiration.” Carol Burnett, his co-star in Annie, wrote: “Nobody could play lovable villains better than he could. He was a dear friend. I was blessed to know him.” His Clue co-star Michael McKean shared: “My last conversation with Tim Curry was about life and love and laughter. The grim physical state he found himself in has now ended, a blessing. Our blessing was that we had Tim Curry in our lives.”

For the queer community, Curry’s legacy is permanent. The Rocky Horror Picture Show remains the longest-running theatrical release in film history — still screening at midnight showings where audiences shout callbacks, throw rice, and dress in lingerie regardless of gender. Every shadowcast performance, every Pride screening, every person who ever felt like a misfit and found their people at a midnight showing of Rocky Horror — that’s Tim Curry’s gift. He gave queerness a permission slip, a soundtrack, and a wardrobe.

“Don’t dream it,” Frank-N-Furter sang. “Be it.”

Tim Curry dreamed it, then he became it — and in doing so, he let millions of us do the same.

We’ll be doing the Time Warp again. And again. And again. For you, Dr. Scott — for you.

Related reading

• Remembering Dolly Parton
• Madonna at World Pride: The Original Pop Disruptor Still Has the Rainbow Receipts
• The Reluctant Heartthrob: Kit Connor

- Good enough for Scott Hunter, good enough for you! -