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Timothy James Curry
(born April 19, 1946 in Grappenhall, a district
of Warrington, England) is a British actor,
vocalist and composer perhaps best known for his
role as mad scientist Dr. Frank N. Furter in The
Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). He also had an
earlier career as a rock musician. He studied
Drama and English at Birmingham and then at
Cambridge. His list of roles is extremely
extensive, in both TV and movies, live-action
and voice-acting for animated features, and it
is notable that he almost always plays a villain
of one kind or another. He currently resides in
Los Angeles, though for the past year or so has
been in Chicago and New York with the current
Broadway hit Monty Python's Spamalot.
****
Early Life
Tim Curry's father
James was a Methodist chaplain for the British
Navy, though Tim himself was always a "cheerful
agnostic" (his own words), and remains so to
this day. Upon James' death in 1958, Tim
relocated to South London, where he attended a
boarding school founded by the father of
Methodism John Wesley. Despite these roots, the
school remained "quite liberal," and Tim found
joy not in the religious aspect especially but
rather in the vast number of hymns available. It
was here that his desire for singing came out as
he developed into a talented boy soprano. When
his voice broke, he was fortunate to be under
the tutelage of a music teacher who encouraged
him to develop a mature singing voice.
When he was 19, he
began his studies at the University of
Birmingham, completing a joint honours in
English and Drama before moving on to study at
the University of Cambridge.
He cites Billie
Holiday as his major musical influence, saying
that he "listened to nothing but her records for
2 years" during a period of teenage depression
as he contemplated on "which gloomy Sunday
afternoon I was going to throw myself under a
car".
Musical Career
In 1978, A&M
Records released Tim Curry's debut solo album.
Entitled "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's second and most successful album was
released. Titled "Fearless," the LP was more
rock-oriented than Read My Lips and mostly
featured original songs rather than cover
versions. The record included Tim 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 did not sell
as well as the previous offerings, due in part
to a less appealing, more maudlin sound. This
record combined both original songs and cover
versions, and is commonly held to be the weakest
of the three albums.
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 "Simple Twist of Fate".
Curry toured
America with his band through the late 1970s and
the first half of the 1980s.
Acting Career
Rocky Horror
Curry's first
full-time role was as part of the original
London cast of the musical Hair in 1968. Here he
first met Richard O'Brien, who went on to create
his next full-time and perhaps still most famous
role, that of Frank N. Furter in the Rocky
Horror Show.
Originally Curry
rehearsed the character with a German accent and
peroxide blonde hair, but the character evolved
into the sly, very upper-class English (He says
'dine' instead of down, 'brine' instead of brown
etc) drag-wearing mad scientist incarnation that
carried over to the movie version 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. However, in recent years he has
been much more open about discussing the show
and now recognizes it as a "rite of passage" for
many young people.
Theatre
In 1979, Curry took
the part of the Pirate King in a London stage
version of The Pirates of Penzance opposite
George Cole. The role is one of his favourites
even now.
In 1981, he 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 Supporting Actor in a Play) for
this role, but lost out to his co-star Sir Ian
McKellen.
1993 saw him play
Alan Swann in the Broadway musical My Favourite
Year, earning him his second Tony Award
nomination for Best Actor in a Musical.
In late 2004, he
began his role of King Arthur in Spamalot in
Chicago. The show successfully moved to Broadway
in February 2005. His part in the show got him
his third and most recent Tony Award nomination,
again for Best Actor in a Musical.
Movies and
television
Curry's television
and movie credits are long and varied. Amongst
his most notable roles are:
Dr. Frank N. Furter
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
Jerome K. Jerome in
the BBC's TV movie "Three Men in a Boat"(1975)
Has-been rock star
Stevie Streeter in Rock Follies of '77 (1977)
The disc jockey
Johnny LaGuardia in Times Square (1980)
One-time guest host
on Saturday Night Live (1981)
Larry Gormley in
BBC's TV comedy Blue Money (1982)
Rooster in the
musical Annie (1982)
Darkness in the
film Legend (1985)
Wadsworth the
Butler in the film Clue (1985)
The Grand Wizard in
"The Worst Witch" (1986)
Dr. Thornton Poole
the elocutionist in the film Oscar (1991)
Pennywise the
Dancing Clown in the miniseries It (based on the
Stephen King novel) (1991)
The arch hotel
concierge Mr Hector in the film Home Alone 2:
Lost in New York (1992)
Dr. Petrov in The
Hunt for Red October (based on the Tom Clancy
novel) (1992)
Cardinal Richelieu
in Disney's "The Three Musketeers" (1993)
Gaal in Earth 2
(1994)
Herkermer Homolka
in Congo (1995), a role he would probably rather
forget due to a Razzie nomination for Worst
Supporting Actor.
Long John Silver in
Muppet Treasure Island (1996)
"Poet Man" in Lexx
(1997) in the episode "Supernova"
Gomez Addams in
Addams Family Reunion (1998)
Roger Corwin in
Charlie's Angels (2000)
Thurman Rice in
Kinsey (2004)
Dale "The Whale"
Biterbeck in Monk, the second person to take the
role, after Adam Arkin. (2004)
Voice acting
From the early
1990s onwards, Curry has been known not just as
an accomplished actor of stage and screen but
also as a highly-acclaimed voice artist. Notable
roles include:
Captain James T.
Hook in Fox's Peter Pan and the Pirates TV
series (1990)
M.A.L., evil
sentient computer program and assistant to Dr.
Blight in Ted Turner's Captain Planet
Sir Gawain in The
Legend of Prince Valiant (1991-1994)
Hexxus in
FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992)
Gabriel_Knight in
the computer games Gabriel Knight: Sins of the
Fathers (1993) and Gabriel Knight III: Blood of
the Sacred, Blood of the Damned (1999)
Maelstrom in Where
on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? (1994)
Dr. Doom in the
Fantastic Four 1994-1995 Animated Series
George Herbert
Walker "King" Chicken on Duckman (1994-1997)
Dr. Sevarius in
Gargoyles (animated series) (1994)
Pretorius in the
cartoon series The Mask (1995)
Count Nefarious in
the video game Toonstruck (1995)
Trader Slick in the
Jumanji cartoon series (1996)
Forté in Disney's
Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas,
earning him an Annie Award nomination.
Nigel Thornberry in
The Wild Thornberries TV series and subsequent
movies (1998)
Stratos the air god
in the video game "Sacrifice" (2000)
The Mouse King in
Barbie in the Nutcracker (2001)
The Cat King in the
English dubbed version of Neko no ongaeshi (aka
The Cat Returns, 2002)
General Von Talon
in "Valiant" (2005)
Narrator of the
Lemony Snicket audio books
General Krevious in
The Fairly OddParents Movie (2006)
Curry was cast as
the "Joker" in Warner Brothers' "Batman: The
Animated Series", and even recorded several
episodes worth of dialogue, but the producers
felt his interpretation was too dark and
frightening. They recast "Mark Hamill" in the
role, who leavened the character's darkness with
an unpredictable sense of humor.
Awards and
nominations
1981 Tony Award
nomination, Best Actor in a Play (for playing
the title role in "Amadeus")
1993 Tony Award
nomination, Best Actor in a Musical (for playing
Alan Swann in "My Favorite Year")
1994 Emmy Award
nomination, Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama
Series (for a trio of roles in Tales from the
Crypt, in an episode entitled "Death of Some
Salesmen")
1996 Razzie Award
nomination, Worst Supporting Actor (for playing
Herkermer Homolka in the movie "Congo")
1998 Annie Award
nomination, Outstanding Individual Achievement
for Voice Acting by a Male Performer in an
Animated Feature Production (for playing Forté
in "Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted
Christmas")
2005 Tony Award
nomination, Best Actor in a Musical (for playing
King Arthur in "Monty Python's Spamalot")
****
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