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Revision as of 12:06, 22 February 2007

Tim Curry
Tim Curry 2005
Born
Timothy James Curry
Height5 ft 9 in (176 cm)

Timothy James Curry (born April 19, 1946) is an English actor, singer and composer perhaps best known for his role as mad scientist Dr. Frank N. Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) or as Pennywise in It (1990).

He also had an earlier career as a rock musician. His list of roles is 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, New York City, and most recently London, with the current Broadway hit Monty Python's Spamalot.

Early life

Tim Curry's father, James, was a Methodist Royal Navy chaplain though Curry himself says he was always a "cheerful agnostic," and remains so to this day. Curry was born and raised in Warrington until upon his father's death in 1958, Curry relocated to South London. He attended Kingswood School and though he didn't enjoy the religious aspect of the Methodist school especially he did enjoy the vast number of hymns available. There, he developed into a talented boy soprano. When his voice broke, his music teacher encouraged him to develop a mature singing voice.

When he was 19, he began his studies at the University of Birmingham, where he also acted with the renowned Guild Theatre Group, 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 two 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

File:Tcrml.jpg
"Read My Lips", Curry's first album release.

Aside from his performances on various soundtrack records, Curry has had some success as a solo musical artist. 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, and is commonly held to be the weakest of his 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. He also performed in Roger Waters's (of Pink Floyd fame) 1990 production of The Wall in Berlin, as the prosecutor.

Acting career

Rocky Horror

File:Rocky Horror Picture Show Cover.jpg
Rocky Horror Picture Show DVD Cover

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 Dr. 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 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, in recent years he has been much more open about discussing the show and now recognises it as a "rite of passage" for many young people.

Theatre

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

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 Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play) for this role, but lost out to his co-star Sir Ian McKellen, who played Antonio Salieri.

Back in England, in the mid 1980-ies, 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 1993, he played Alan Swann in the Broadway musical My Favorite 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. Curry then starred as King Arthur in London's West End at the Palace Theatre, where Spamalot opened on October 16, 2006. On January 18, 2007, Curry was nominated for Laurence Olivier Award as the Best Actor in a Musical; this was one of seven nominations earned by the London production of Spamalot, including a nomination for the Best New Musical. On January 24, 2007, Curry was replaced by Simon Russell Beale, who also took over the role of King Arthur on Broadway. On February 9, 2007 it was announced that Curry 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 for his King Arthur at the Palace Theatre.

Movies and television

Curry's television and movie credits are long and varied. Amongst his most notable roles are:

He has said that he considers his most memorable performance to be Frank N Furter. However, he has stated that he considers his favourite role to be Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island because of his chance to work with Miss Piggy. Curry has also said another of his favourite roles was Dr. Poole in 1991's Oscar.

Voice acting

File:Nigthorn.jpg
Nigel Thornberry from The Wild Thornberries, voiced by Tim Curry

From the early 1990s onward, Curry has been 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, 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.

At the end of 2002, he served as the narrator in a parody of "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" for Nickelodeon, the channel that aired his show "The Wild Thornberries". In the parody, Angelica (of "Rugrats" fame) serves in the Grinch role as she steals all the toys in a town.

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

Awards and nominations

Preceded by
None
(he was the original actor)
 Actor Playing King Arthur in Spamalot Broadway
March 17, 2005 (Opening) -
December 19, 2005 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
None
(he was the original actor)
 Actor Playing King Arthur in Spamalot West End
September 30, 2006 (Opened October 16 2006) -
January 9, 2007 		Succeeded by
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