For Actor Tim Curry, ‘Mortality Is Astonishing’

His new memoir, ‘Vagabond,’ delves into his legendary career — and the health challenges he’s faced after a devastating stroke in 2012

Gayle Jo Carter,

AARP

Comments

Published October 14, 2025

tim curry posing for a portrait with red balloons in the background

Tim Curry redefined what it means to be a character actor, portraying heroes and villains alike with complexity, nuance and a true grasp of human darkness.

Fanmio

Actor Tim Curry, 79, describes in his memoir, Vagabond, out Oct. 14, how he sees himself: “Vagabonds rove. We travel about and pick up work wherever we go. We wander, drift, stagger, wink. Reluctant to be pinned down, we’re enticed by risk, restless if we linger, fueled by curiosity and a sense of wonder.”

“Vagabond: A Memoir,” out Oct. 14, celebrates Curry’s life and work and takes readers behind the scenes of his rise to fame.

Courtesy Grand Central Publishing

Elsewhere in the memoir, the Tony-nominated Curry shares how his “vagabond blues, hopes, and highs” have followed him through various stages of life: on stage, on screen, in his home and gardens, and in his personae and voices. Not to mention his memorable roles: his film debut as the eccentric scientist Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the 1975 cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the original King Arthur in both the Broadway and West End versions of Spamalot, Wadsworth the butler in Clue, and Pennywise the murderous clown in the 1990 TV miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s It. Curry also shares intimate thoughts on the most difficult parts of his life, including the catastrophic, near-fatal stroke he suffered in 2012. “I do recall having the thought that, at sixty-seven, I was too young to be facing mortality,” he writes in Vagabond. “Mortality is astonishing. We’re here today and gone tomorrow.”

Curry, who continues to work in the voice acting world and had his first post-stroke on-screen role in last year’s horror film Stream, talked to AARP from his home in Los Angeles about what fans always want to know when they meet him (he’ll join some of his castmates for a meet and greet at a 50th anniversary Rocky Horror screening on Nov. 2 in Anaheim, California); his hopes for his 80th birthday next year; and how he’s adapted — or not — to his life post-stroke.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Love the book. I learned a lot about you. What a life.

Really? I’m glad. I’ve been very lucky.

What inspired you to write the memoir?

If I’m honest, I didn’t have any work coming. So I thought now was the time to write it, because I’d thought about it for a while.

This is a really big year: 50 years from Rocky Horror Picture Show; 40 years from Clue. Can you believe it?

Well, it is extraordinary. I have to believe it, because the evidence of it is in my face a lot. It is an extraordinary result.

Did you have any idea when you were making Rocky Horror that it would become all that?

None at all. It was my first film. So I was preoccupied with trying to learn how to do it. It’s wonderful to have a whole body of people who appreciate the movie and sometimes me. You know, Katharine Hepburn wrote a memoir and called it Me. I saw an interview with her once where she said, “What else would you call it but Me-eeeeeee?” That was smart.

tim curry as doctor frank n furter in rocky horror picture show

Curry’s film debut, as the cross-dressing scientist Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the 1975 cult classic “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” endeared him to fans early on.

Mary Evans/20th Century Fox/Courtesy Everett Collection

When you meet Rocky Horror fans, what do they want to know?

I’ve done some Comic-Cons and conventions, and I also do meet and greets. They always want a sequel. And they want to know what it was like to do it, to make the film. I think they want to reassure themselves that I’m proud of it.

Most Popular

Are you?

Yeah, very much so.

Did you look up to any actors as you were coming up?

Very much so. Alec Guinness more than anybody, because he had an extraordinary range and wasn’t afraid to go there. He took a lot of risks and had an extraordinary body of work. He used to practice walking down the road in a way that would make him recognized … which I thought was interesting.

You talk about your role in Clue, as the butler Wadsworth, as being one of the most challenging. In what way?

I was very scared. I was used to doing theater, and you could practically bench-press the script for Clue. It seemed to be awfully long and very complicated. I worried about learning it. But I forgot that in a movie, you only do a scene or so a day. I’m a fast learner. It was scary, though, because there were so many very talented people in it and I didn’t want to lag behind.

tim curry in costume with the cast of clue

(From left) Lesley Ann Warren, Martin Mull, Madeline Kahn, Michael McKean, Curry, Christopher Lloyd and Eileen Brennan in 1985’s "Clue.”

Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection

What did you do to learn all that dialogue?

I actually bumped into a driver the other day, a teamster who had driven me to work at Paramount every day. And he said I used to hold the day’s script in my hand and learn it on the drive from my home to the studio. So I had a sort of semi-photographic memory then. I don’t now.

Yes, your stroke changed your life as you knew it. What has kept you marching forward?

I think I’m just stubborn. I still relish a challenge and a risk. And I try to seek them out. I’m never really quite sure whether I can pull off any of the parts that I’ve been asked to play, but that’s what’s intriguing about it, is that you learn something about yourself facing up to the challenge, and that keeps me going, keeps me having a more youthful attitude than perhaps I would present.

You continue to engage in voice acting. [Curry began that work in the ’80s, later winning an Emmy for his role as Captain Hook on Peter Pan & the Pirates (1990–1991). More recently he voiced Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious in Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2012–2014).] How does it compare?

I don’t think it’s that different. It has to be truthful. It has to hit the mark. And it’s a very inventive way to build a character, which is the point of acting. People think of voice acting as something very surface, that you’re only using a small part of yourself, but it can be very instructive and illustrative. And the way that people speak is very revealing.

What do you find difficult now in your work?

It’s harder for me to speak now, since I had a stroke 13 years ago, on Friday the 13th. Too many 13s; I don’t like that number. I resent it being so difficult to speak, because it’s one of my main joys. I cherish my language.

Many of AARP’s members are facing health challenges. How have you adjusted to needing help with your everyday life?

It makes the world go round. I’m very lucky. I have a team of three guys who alternate. It’s curious for me because I’m used to running things and it makes me feel very vulnerable, which is probably a good thing because I can be quite bossy. I don’t suffer fools gladly.

What advice would you give other people dealing with serious health issues?

Well, sometimes you can’t avoid going down the rabbit hole, but you can at least find out what it looks like and how deep it is, because it’s a natural occurrence and we need to treasure those. And maybe they’re teachable moments that come later in your life.

Do you have a favorite part after all these years?

My favorite was Mozart in Amadeus [Broadway, 1980]. It was a play, and it was fascinating. I’ve played two geniuses: Mozart and Shakespeare [in the TV miniseries Will Shakespeare, 1978]. And they were both fascinating, because you want to know what it is that is different about them. You don’t necessarily find out, but you’re in search of it every minute of every day that you’re working.

tim curry as pennywise in the it television miniseries

As Pennywise the Clown, Curry brought horror to living rooms everywhere in 1990 with “It.”

Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection

Were there any parts you didn’t get, or any “coulda, woulda, shouldas” in your career?

There’s a part I didn’t get. Hannibal Lecter. I wanted to play him very badly. I couldn’t get into the room with the guys who mattered. But I thought Anthony Hopkins, 87, did a great job, and he’s my kind of actor. He disappears into himself, and you don’t know which box he’s going to come out of at any time. I think that’s important. That’s an element of surprise which I strive for.

Did you ever get to meet him? Did you tell him you wanted that part?

I have met him, but I don’t believe I told him. I’m not sure that I would have had the courage to do that.

You’ll be 80 next year. That’s an amazing number to get to.

I know. My mother insisted that she was going to make it to 80, and she did. But she died when she was 80. I think it is genuinely old. I don’t think of myself as particularly old yet, although I’m 79.

Will you have a party?

I’m sure I will. Or if I don’t, I will torture somebody into giving me one.

%{postComment}%

Gayle Jo Carter is a former entertainment editor at USA WEEKEND, who during her 30-year reporting and editing career, has worked at USA TODAY, Voice of America and Feature Story News. When not interviewing high-profile people, she’s teaching reformer Pilates classes and doing her best to raise two empathetic, curious, healthy young people to adulthood.