Fuck, 2026 has been a rough one.

It feels like incredible talents are shedding their mortal coils at a rate we haven’t seen since 2016. Just as we begin to get over the loss of one beloved figure, another goes.

And today, we learned of the passing of Tim Curry.

Timothy James Curry (19 April 1946 – 25 August 2026) was an English actor, singer and voice actor whose extraordinary career stretched across stage, film, television, music and animation.

For many, Curry will forever be Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Show and its legendary film adaptation, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was a performance that helped turn Curry into a cultural icon.

But the wonderful thing about Tim Curry is that almost everyone seems to have their own version of him.

Maybe you remember the terrifying Pennywise from IT. Maybe it’s the increasingly exasperated Wadsworth running around the mansion in Clue. Perhaps it’s the wonderfully suspicious hotel concierge in Home Alone 2, or his gloriously theatrical Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island.

And then there was Darkness in Legend.

Because, bloody hell, could Tim Curry play a villain.

Yet even those roles barely scratch the surface of his career.

Curry truly had range. He could be terrifying, ridiculous, charming, sinister and hilarious — sometimes seemingly all within the same performance.

For an entirely different generation, he wasn’t necessarily Frank-N-Furter or Pennywise at all.

He was Nigel Thornberry.

That instantly recognisable voice became almost as important to his career as his physical performances, allowing Curry to bring his particular brand of theatrical madness to animation, games and countless other projects.

In 2012, Curry suffered a major stroke that dramatically changed his life. It would have been completely understandable for him to disappear from public life.

But Tim kept going.

His work changed, his circumstances changed, but his creativity didn’t disappear.

Perhaps that’s why the title of his 2025 memoir feels so appropriate:

Vagabond.

Curry lived a genuinely remarkable life. He wandered between theatre, cinema, television, music, comedy, horror and animation, never allowing himself to become just one thing.

Tim Curry died at his home in Los Angeles on 25 August 2026, aged 80.

And while today is understandably about mourning the man we’ve lost, there is something wonderful about looking at just how much he left behind.

Generations of people have grown up with Tim Curry without necessarily realising they were all fans of the same man.

A sweet transvestite.

A demonic lord of darkness.

A murderous clown.

A suspicious hotel concierge.

A pirate.

A butler.

A communist dictator, in space.

And one particularly smashing wildlife documentarian.

There will never be another quite like him. In fact in every role he wasn’t the role, they where him.

Rest well, Tim.

And thank you for the memories.