He built a fifty-year career out of characters nobody else could have played. Nine chapters that explain why the tributes have not stopped.
Curry died peacefully at his home in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles, at 80, his representatives said. No cause has been released. He had lived with the effects of a 2012 stroke.
Born in Grappenhall, Cheshire, in April 1946, he was a choirboy first. He left the University of Birmingham in 1968 with a degree in English and drama.
His first professional job was the 1968 London cast of Hair. In it he met Richard O'Brien, who five years later handed him a script about a Transylvanian scientist.
The Rocky Horror Show opened in a 63-seat room above the Royal Court in June 1973. Curry's Frank-N-Furter was so complete that the show moved to the West End within months.
The 1975 film died on release. Midnight screenings revived it, and audiences have been shouting back at it ever since. It marked 50 years in cinemas in 2025.
Three albums followed on A&M: Read My Lips in 1978, Fearless in 1979 and Simplicity in 1981. Only one single, "I Do the Rock," reached the Billboard Hot 100.
Rooster in Annie in 1982, Wadsworth the butler in Clue in 1985, and the Plaza's suspicious concierge in Home Alone 2 in 1992: comic menace became his signature.
His clown in the 1990 miniseries It scared a generation. His voice work won a Daytime Emmy for Captain Hook, and gave FernGully its smoke-and-oil villain, Hexxus.
The stage never let him go. He was nominated for Amadeus in 1981, My Favorite Year in 1993 and, as King Arthur in Spamalot, at the Shubert Theatre in 2005.
After the 2012 stroke he carried on in voice booths and at conventions, and published his memoir Vagabond in October 2025. It became a New York Times bestseller.