Tim Curry

 OK, you gotta be fucking kidding me!

I'm still gobsmacked that Dolly Parton died at age 80 when I hear that Tim Curry has also passed away at the age of 80.

I need to have a chat with Death for a minute.

Look, dude, I don't know what the problem is here why you keep taking out people that other people actually like. If you got to take out an 80 year old, there's a target who is big, fat, loud and orange and I don't know how you can fucking miss him! 

Damn it! 

Where was I? Oh yeah, Tim Curry is dead and life sucks worse now.

It was just a few weeks ago when we were staying with Andrea's dad for a week, he and I were watching CBS Sunday Morning.

He's old. I'm old. Of course we're watcing CBS Sunday Morning.

Ben Mankiewicz was interviewing Tim Curry.

Tim Curry has been through some shit.

In 2012, he had a stroke that left him paralyzed.  Over a decade plus later, he's still hanging in there. But he was definitely pondering his mortality. 

When you're 80 years old and trapped in a body frozen by a stroke, I suppose one can't help but ponder the inevitability of death.

But he approached the subject of death without bitterness but with a remarkable calm and an appreciation of the life he has had.

Tim Curry started with a groundbreaking role as Dr. Franken Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. In a film of utter insanity and unfiltered strangeness, Tim Curry captivated the viewer as  the transexual transvestite from Transylvannia.  

Curry also stood out as Rooster Hannigan in Annie (1982), the monster known as "Darkness" in Legend (1985), the Concierge in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), Cardinal Richelieu in The Three Musketeers (1993), and Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island (1996).

Perhaps my favorite Tim Curry role was as Wadsworth the Butler in Clue (1985).

Here is a video compilation of Curry as the Butler.  

Tim Curry never married or had any children. And beyond that, his personal life was a closed book.  Even in the book Curry actually wrote about his life.  

“I guarantee you, if it matters, that I have experienced true love, true heartbreak, and everything in between, including no small amount of wreckage. Which, naturally, helps inform who I am. I have loved and been loved and I hope you have, too. But I’m not interested in your romances. And specifics about my affairs of the heart or the bedroom are—respectfully—none of your fucking business.”

An odd sentiment to express in the introduction of his memoir.

But Tim Curry was perhaps an odd fellow who gravitated to odd roles that sparked our interest and made us smile.

Or grimace.  Such as Tim's portrayal of Pennywise in the TV adaption of Stephen King's It.   

Tim Curry played a character who became a recurring meme.  In the video game  In Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, released in 2008, Curry plays Soviet Premier Anatoly Cherdenko.

 “I’m escaping to the one place that hasn’t been corrupted by capitalism… SPACE!”

I kind of dig where he's coming from.  

Perhaps Tim is not dead. He's just escaped this corrupted old world into space.

God speed, Tim Curry and safe journey into forever.  

___________________________________

A  second post is coming up later this morning, Comic Book Retro 50: August 1976.