Tim Curry

Tim Curry

Curry 2005 in New York City
Born Timothy James Curry
19 April 1946 (1946-04-19) (age 64)
Grappenhall, Warrington, England, UK
Occupation Actor, singer, composer
Years active 1968–present

Timothy James "Tim" Curry (born 19 April 1946) is an English actor, singer, composer and voice actor, known for his work in a diverse range of theatre, film and television productions. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California.

Curry first became known to audiences with his breakthrough role as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the 1975 cult movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show, then later for his supporting roles as Rooster in the film adaption of Annie, Lord of Darkness in the film Legend (1985), Wadsworth in the movie Clue, as well as a starring role portraying Pennywise the Dancing Clown in the horror film It. He played Nigel, the father in the Nickelodeon children's TV show The Wild Thornberrys. He has performed the role of King Arthur in the Broadway hit Monty Python's Spamalot.

Contents

Early life

Curry's father, James, was a Methodist chaplain in the Royal Navy, and his mother, Patricia, was a school secretary.[1] Curry was born and brought up in Warrington and attended Lymm High School until his father's death in 1958. Curry's family moved to South London, though Curry himself went to boarding school and attended Kingswood School in Bath. As a child, he developed into a talented boy soprano (treble).[2] Deciding to concentrate on acting, Curry graduated from Birmingham University with a combined degree in English and drama.[3]

Acting career

Rocky Horror

Main article: The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Curry's first full-time role was as part of the original London cast of the musical Hair in 1968, where he first met Richard O'Brien[4] who went on to write Curry's next full-time role, that of Dr. Frank N. Furter in The Rocky Horror Show.[5]

Originally, Curry rehearsed the character with a German accent and peroxide blond hair, but the character evolved into the sly, very upper-class English mad scientist and transvestite that carried over to the movie version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and made Curry both a star and a cult figure. He continued to play the character in London, Los Angeles and New York until 1975.

For many years, Curry was reluctant to talk about Rocky Horror, feeling that it was a trend that had gone too far and had distracted attention away from his later roles. A VH1 Pop-Up Video Halloween special even quoted Curry as saying he grew so unnerved by all the fan attention after this role that he became "chubby and plain" in order to escape it. However, he has become much more open about discussing the show and now recognizes it as a "rite of passage" for many young people.

Theatre

Shortly after the end of Rocky Horror Show on Broadway, Curry was back on Broadway with Tom Stoppard's Travesties, which ran in London and New York from 1975 to 1976. Travesties was a Broadway hit which won two Tony Awards (Best Performance by an Actor for John Wood and Best Comedy), as well as the New York Drama Critics Circle Award (Best Play), and Curry's performance as the famous dadaist Tristan Tzara received good reviews.

In 1981, Curry formed part of the original cast in the Broadway show Amadeus, playing the title character, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He was nominated for his first Tony Award (Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play) for this role, but lost out to his co-star Ian McKellen, who played Antonio Salieri. In 1982, Curry took the part of the Pirate King in the Drury Lane production of Joe Papp's version of The Pirates of Penzance opposite George Cole, earning enthusiastic reviews.

In the mid 1980s, Curry performed in The Rivals (Bob Acres 1983) and in several plays with the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain, including The Threepenny Opera (MacHeath 1986), Dalliance (Theodore 1986), and Love For Love (Tattle 1985). In 1987/1988, Curry did the national tour of Me and My Girl as the lead role of 'Bill Snibson', a role originated on Broadway by Robert Lindsay and followed by Jim Dale. In 1989/90, Tim Curry returned once again to the New York stage in The Art of Success. In 1993, Curry played Alan Swann in the Broadway musical version of My Favorite Year, earning him his second Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical.

Curry at the 47th Emmy Awards.

In 2001, Curry starred as Scrooge in the musical version of A Christmas Carol that played at Madison Square Garden. In 2004, Curry began his role of King Arthur in Spamalot in Chicago. The show successfully moved to Broadway in February 2005. The show sold more than $1 million worth of tickets in its first 24 hours.[6] It brought him a third Tony nomination, again for Best Actor in a Musical. Curry reprised this role in London's West End at the Palace Theatre, where Spamalot opened on 16 October 2006. His final performance came on 6 January 2007. He was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award as the Best Actor in a Musical for the role and also won the Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers' Choice Award (getting 39% of the votes cast by over 12,000 theatregoers) as Best Actor in a Musical.

Films and television

Curry's television and film credits are long and varied. A partial list of roles:

Voice acting

From the early 1990s onward, Curry has also become known as a highly-acclaimed voice artist. Notable roles include:

Curry was cast as the Joker in Warner Brothers' Batman: The Animated Series, and even recorded several episodes worth of dialogue. At the 1993 San Diego Comic-Con, Bruce Timm told a panel audience that Curry could not maintain the Joker voice for long, and would violently cough between takes, so he was replaced by Mark Hamill.

At the end of 2002, Curry served as the narrator in a parody of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! for Nickelodeon.

Curry was also cast as the voice of SIR (Simulated Intelligence Robotics) at Walt Disney World's Alien Encounter, which ran from 1995 to 2003.

Games

Musical career

Aside from his performances on various soundtrack records, Curry has had some success as a solo musical artist. In 1976, he recorded a 9-song album for Lou Adler's Ode Records which was unreleased in its entirely until February 2010, when it was made available as a legal download (4 tracks from these sessions had been released on a 1990 Rocky Horror box set). In 1978, A&M Records released Curry's debut solo album, Read My Lips. The album featured an eclectic range of songs (mostly covers) performed in diverse genre. Highlights of the album are a reggae version of the Beatles song "I Will", a rendition of "Wake Nicodemus" with full bagpipe backing, and an original bar-room ballad, "Alan".

The following year, Curry released his second and most successful album, Fearless. The LP was more rock-oriented than Read My Lips and mostly featured original songs rather than cover versions. The record included Curry's only US charting songs: "I Do the Rock" and "Paradise Garage".

Curry's third and final album, Simplicity, was released in 1981, again by A&M Records. This record, which did not sell as well as the previous offerings, combined both original songs and cover versions.

In 1989, A&M released The Best of Tim Curry on CD and cassette, featuring songs from his albums (including a live version of "Alan") and a previously unreleased song, a live cover version of Bob Dylan's "Simple Twist of Fate".

Curry toured America with his band through the late 1970s and the first half of the 1980s. He also performed in Roger Waters' (of Pink Floyd fame) 1990 production of The Wall in Berlin, as the prosecutor. Curry's voice also appeared on The Clash's Sandinista!, on the track "Sound of Sinners".

The writing, production and musician roster for Curry's solo albums included an impressive list of collaborators, including Bob Ezrin and David Sanborn.

Real estate career

Apart from his notable successes as an actor, Curry has also developed several properties in the city of Los Angeles. Among these is a 1926 Mediterranean Italianate Revival estate located on Nottingham Avenue just below Griffith Park Observatory in the neighborhood of Los Feliz.[10]

Awards and nominations

References

  1. ↑ "Tim Curry Biography (1946-)". Filmreference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/film/35/Tim-Curry.html. Retrieved 2009-09-15. 
  2. ↑ Mervyn Rothstein, "Tim Curry Plunges Ahead Into the Past, Part IV", New York Times, 24 January 1990
  3. ↑ Harding, James (1987). The Rocky Horror Show Book. London: Sidgwick & Jackson. page 45
  4. ↑ "Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic :: Sky One". Web.archive.org. 2008-01-18. http://web.archive.org/web/20080118092709/http://www.skyoneonline.co.uk/tcom/tim_curry.htm. Retrieved 2009-09-15. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Mark Brown (2006-10-20). "'We were all going to join this street theatre troupe. Tim got a job in Hair the next day. All he had to do was sing'". The Guardian. http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1927272,00.html. Retrieved 2008-03-26. 
  6. ↑ "In Step With: Tim Curry". Parade Magazine. May 29, 2005. http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2005/edition_05-29-2005/in_step_with_0. 
  7. ↑ Landis Heads to the Streets of Edinburgh for 'Burke & Hare'
  8. ↑ McWhertor, Michael (2009-06-15). "Tim Schafer Explains Why Dio's Out Of Brütal Legend, Tim Curry's In — ronnie james dio". Kotaku. http://kotaku.com/5291718/tim-schafer-explains-why-dios-out-of-brutal-legend-tim-currys-in. Retrieved 2009-09-15. 
  9. ↑ 27 augustus 2009. "Dragon Age: Origins — VO Talent". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTAJn4H3FBA. Retrieved 2009-09-15. 
  10. ↑ Los Angeles Times. May 7, 2006. Ruth Ryon. "An Eye for Crowning Touches", Real Estate Section.

External links

Preceded by
None		 Actor Playing King Arthur in Spamalot Broadway
17 March 2005 (Opening) -
19 December 2005		 Succeeded by
Simon Russell Beale
21 December 2005 -
26 April 2006
Preceded by
None		 Actor Playing King Arthur in Spamalot West End
30 September 2006 (Opened 16 October 2006) -
6 January 2007		 Succeeded by
Simon Russell Beale
24 January 2007 -
July 2007