Tim Curry, who wrote about his career on stage and screen in a well-received 2025 memoir, has died at 80, the Associated Press reports.

Curry, a native of Grappenhall, England, was educated at the University of Birmingham. In 1968, he was cast in the West End production of the musical Hair; in Vagabond, he explained that producers were looking for “hippies who could sing.”

In 1973, he originated the role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a cross-dressing mad scientist, in the musical The Rocky Horror Show, and he reprised the role in a screen adaptation, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The 1975 film became a cult classic, and it still plays in midnight showings across the world. “People often ask me for my opinion about why audiences keep coming back to this outrageous film,” Curry wrote in Vagabond. “How has it proven to have such endurance, which has allegedly changed people’s lives? What made it such a sensation? Nobody fucking knows.”

He went on to star in films including Annie, Clue, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, and The Hunt for Red October.

Grand Central published Vagabond last October. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus called the book “entertaining, briskly paced, and well worth reading.”

Curry was also a prolific audiobook narrator, lending his voice to titles including Abhorsen by Garth Nix, Belladonna by Karen Moline, Portobello by Ruth Rendell, and The Music of the Spheres by Elizabeth Redfern.

Curry’s admirers paid tribute to him on social media. On the platform X, actor Jennifer Tilly posted, “I loved working with Tim Curry. He was a comedic genius and a brilliant man. Gone too soon.”

And comedian Mike Drucker wrote, “Tim Curry was one of the few actors who could pull off being absolutely delightful, comedically mischievous, and deeply terrifying depending on the role. He never gave less than his best, even in films that didn’t deserve him. One of the most iconic voices in movie history. Damn.”

Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.