The Song and Dance Man Who Brought Dr. Frank-N-Furter and Pennywise to Life

As Tim Curry is the first to admit, his best known alter-ego, the inimitable Dr. Frank-N-Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, would have no problem being a media darling, the kind of scene-stealer “who would have been abundantly comfortable giving interviews and being in the spotlight.” But Curry himself? Not so much. “I don’t admire the part of show business that deems your personal life public property,” the acclaimed actor writes in his new memoir, Vagabond. “I usually tried to keep it down to one or two big interviews per year, often when I wanted to try and help sell something.”

Vagabond: A Memoir  
By Tim Curry
Grand Central Publishing; 281 pages

That explains the reason for the memoir, then: both a public appearance AND an item to sell. Not that Curry hasn’t had an incredibly diverse career that’s worth exploring. Along with Frank-N-Furter, he was also the first to bring the creepy clown Pennywise to life in the 1990 version of It, originated the role of King Arthur in Spamalot, took on the mantle of the Bard in the TV series Will Shakespeare, played Mozart in the first Broadway production of Amadeus, made guest appearances in such shows as Roseanne, Wiseguy, Will & Grace, and Family Affair, and has lent his vocal talents to such as animated works A Christmas Carol and the Rugrats films. And that’s not even mentioning his recording career.

But, as the book’s introduction informs the reader, his personal life is off limits. It’s not just that he “won’t be dishing out lurid details of my love affairs” — he doesn’t reveal any details about his romantic life at all. Fair enough; celebrities deserve a zone of privacy too. But it does mean you don’t get a sense of the full person. In the case of Vagabond, you’re left to read between lines, as when Curry concedes that “I have experienced true love, true heartbreak, and everything in between.” Elsewhere he tantalizingly writes that the Rocky Horror song lyric “Give yourself over to absolute pleasure” was one he readily explored himself, calling it “a physically exhausting philosophy and one I pretty much took to heart at the time.” And that takes care of the subject of interpersonal relationships.

He further adds that his story won’t be “a juicy Hollywood tell-all … I find such books immensely dull.” Now, this is a real shame, because Curry has a devilish sense of humor that he occasionally does allow to slip through. As when he says he wasn’t that disappointed to not appear on the studio cast version of Jesus Christ Superstar because he doesn’t especially care for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music: “I prefer more personal tunes that are of our time and don’t strike a derivative tone … If I wanted to sing Puccini I would’ve gone into opera.” Or his pen portrait of Charlie Sheen, with whom he worked on the 1993 version The Three Musketeers (Curry played Cardinal Richelieu): “Not the sharpest pencil in the drawer, Charlie … Perhaps it was for the best that we never meshed well enough to partake of our booze together.”

Or encountering Donald Trump and Marla Maples on the set of Home Alone 2, with Trump telling Curry he wants his squeeze to meet the film’s director, Chris Columbus, “because Marla is a very talented actress.” Curry gives a diplomatic reply “I’m… sure she is.” And, as he observes in his memoir, “That wasn’t a complete lie; I have no doubt she was good at faking it.”

It’s morsels like these that keep you turning the pages to see what’s coming next. And Vagabond is quite aptly named, as Curry has indeed spent most of his life on the move. And not just in the physical sense of being on the road in touring stage productions or moving between homes in England, New York, and Los Angeles. He’s also moved between disciplines, bouncing between stage and screen with ease. Check out this listing of his professional work; it’s the resume of a veritable maverick. Note also the variety of roles; though often cast as the heavy, he’s just as comfortable playing a straight-laced butler (Clue) or a 1930s-era song-and-dance man (Me and My Girl).

Curry understandably devotes the greatest amount of space (two chapters) revisiting his years with The Rocky Horror Show/The Rocky Horror Picture Show (the latter celebrating its 50th anniversary this year), a period he calls “among the most joyous times in my life.” What lies behind his creation of what’s likely his most memorable character? Possibly Little Richard; Curry reveals that it was his madcap performance of the ’50s rocker’s hit “Tutti Frutti” (“throwing myself around the place without a hint of inhibition”) that won him the role. Why put him in a corset? Costume designer Sue Blaine “wanted to blow people’s minds,” he explains. “And I had the legs for it.” And his answer to why Rocky Horror became such a phenomenon is succinct and refreshing: “Nobody fucking knows.”

In a book that largely accentuates the positive, it’s interesting to see at what points Curry decides to get a bit critical. There’s a chapter on Legend, where Curry was transformed into the Lord of Darkness himself, through an agonizing process of having a body cast made, then having to endure a daily regimen of five-hour sessions in the makeup chair. You’d expect him to complain about that, which he does, politely. But while “grateful” he was tapped to play the role, he was less impressed with the final product, comparing it to another of director Ridley Scott’s films, Blade Runner, both “ahead of their time” he says, but ultimately films that focused on the visual at the expense of the narrative: “The stories drag and it’s easy to get a bit lost.”

He’s similarly reticent about praising It. He was “instantly intrigued” when his agent asked “if I would be interested in the role of a psychotic clown” — who wouldn’t be? And his own admitted loathing of clowns undoubtedly helped make his portrayal of the demonic “Pennywise” especially sinister. Yet, though it’s among his most highly-known characters, he admits “I didn’t revel in the role,” hinting that the material may not have been elevated enough: “It wasn’t exactly a [Tom] Stoppard experience. Nor did I expect it to be,” he adds hastily. A more unexpected revelation is the discomfort he feels at meeting fans who share how much the character traumatized them: “It’s not the most charming conversation starter.”

It’s also fascinating to see him open up about one of his rare missteps. Cast in the role of The Player for a 2011 production of Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead on the British stage, he inexplicably found himself unable to memorize his lines. It wasn’t his first Stoppard production; he’d previously appeared in Travesties in the mid-’70s. Now he was reduced to wearing earbuds so that a prompter could read him his dialogue, line by line. It proved to be an embarrassing experience, compounded by his eventually being dismissed; the first time he’d ever been fired.

It turned out to be his last stage performance as well. And here, perhaps, is a clue to his consistently positive outlook. In 2012, Curry experienced a paralytic stroke, losing the use of the left side of his body and permanently confining him to a wheelchair. For a time, he had trouble speaking, a skill he gradually regained, which has allowed him to return to voiceover work. “My life has changed dramatically in just about every way,” he notes with typically British understatement. His resolutely upbeat attitude has clearly helped him deal with a devastating life event. There’s no room for sympathy: “Whining is a fucking bore for everybody involved.” Instead, he opens the book’s “Acknowledgments” section with the words “I am a very lucky man.”

That’s a line that could be this book’s subtitle. And why wouldn’t he feel lucky? As he writes, “I’ve had more than one staring contest with Death and it has eventually blinked first” (maybe Death had seen him as Pennywise). Vagabond provides a reminder that you can be held back more by your mindset than your personal circumstances. As Curry says, “A vagabond looks upon the world as a field of potential and possibility.” And Tim Curry still sees all those possibilities.

Tim Curry, Carol Burnett, and Bernadette Peters sing ‘Easy Street’ in the 1982 film version of ‘Annie.’