Remembering Tim Curry's Greatest Musical Roles | Stage & Screen

Looking Back on Tim Curry’s Musical Performances

Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re taking a trip down memory lane to some of Tim Curry’s best musical moments on stage and screen.

We won’t leave you shivering in anticipation; let’s jump into the role that probably comes to musical fans’ minds when they think of Tim Curry. Did you know he first strapped on Frank-N-Furter’s high heels almost a decade before the film? He originated the role on stage, experimenting with different accents and looks before settling on the character fans know today. When the stage show received its silver screen makeover, even rock stars wanted a piece of it. Mick Jagger, David Bowie, and Lou Reed all lobbied for the role or tried to get the rights. Yet the production stuck with its original Frank. And thank goodness they did.

Curry’s Frank was terrifying, gorgeous, hilarious, and magnetic. Strutting around in towering stilettos, fishnets, and a corset, he gave Frank the confidence of a Hollywood siren with the undercurrent of a terrifying menace. Vocally, he could shift from a seductive purr to a theatrical roar, giving every song the emotional weight it deserved. That’s why Curry’s remains the definitive Frank. Beneath the decadence and danger is someone desperately searching for love and acceptance, making his downfall surprisingly heartbreaking.

Then Curry swapped the corset and fishnets for a wonderfully awful polyester suit to play Rooster Hannigan in “Annie.” As Miss Hannigan’s con-man brother, he joins Carol Burnett and Bernadette Peters for one of the musical’s most fun numbers, bringing plenty of Rat Pack energy and sleazy charm to his appearance. It’s a relatively small role, but Curry makes every second count, turning Rooster into a wonderfully flamboyant scene-stealer. He throws himself into every little movement, grin, and musical flourish, proving that for him, effortlessly balancing family-friendly musicals and cult movie madness really is a trip down “Easy Street.”

His love of big, theatrical villains and high-seas swashbuckling also made him a perfect Long John Silver in “Muppet Treasure Island.” Even surrounded by felt crewmates, he treats the material with the seriousness of a grand pirate epic. In “Professional Pirate,” he gets to scheme, sing, steal the limelight, and generally enjoy himself as a captain who takes his profession very seriously and knows how to sell it. It’s one of those performances where you can practically see Curry having the time of his life, making it all the more enjoyable for us to watch and making the pirate life pretty tempting too!

Livestream CTA: Not to upstage Long John Silver’s ONLY number, but did you know that if you scan that QR code, you’ll find a treasure trove of non-stop pop culture fun over on MsMojo’s 24/7 livestream?

Then there are Curry’s animated roles, where his talent for musical theatre and making the villain one of those most beloved characters on screen come together beautifully. In “Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas,” he voices Forte, an enormous, egotistical pipe organ, and gets to put that booming baritone front and center in “Don’t Fall in Love.” Curry gives the song a wonderfully theatrical sense of menace, practically pummelling the Beast with his booming vocals and increasingly dramatic delivery. Then there’s Hexxus in “FernGully: The Last Rainforest,” whose “Toxic Love” lets Curry go in a completely different direction. Over a sultry, jazz-influenced arrangement, he purrs, growls, and slides between notes with a deliciously sinister quality. Both performances show exactly why Curry was such a natural fit for musical villains: he could make a song feel like a full performance in itself.

We’ve already talked about Curry’s most famous musical role, but how he got Frank N. Furter is a story in itself. Curry happened to bump into Richard O’Brien, writer of The Rocky Horror Show and eventual Riff Raff, outside a London gym. The two had previously worked together on the original London production of Hair, where Curry understudied Woof and played a member of the tribe. O’Brien mentioned he was looking for someone to play Rocky, so Curry agreed to audition.

Curry auditioned with a version of Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti” while wearing boots he had spray-painted silver. They quickly realized he wasn’t their musclebound Rocky. As it turned out, Curry had rather more to offer in high heels, fishnets, and a corset than flexing his muscles in pants that left little to the imagination. After his London run, Curry also took Frank to LA and Broadway.

Yet Curry’s genius lay in his refusal to stay pigeonholed. He took on The Pirate King in Joe Papp’s production of “The Pirates of Penzance,” trading Frank’s rock-and-roll energy for rollicking fun. The role gave him plenty of rapid-fire patter, broad comedy, and opportunities to play directly to the audience. He won the Royal Variety Club Award for Stage Actor of the Year for the performance, showing just how easily he could move between completely different styles.

His Broadway work in “My Favorite Year” brought out a different side. Curry played Alan Swann, a boozy, aging Hollywood star trying to find his way again while appearing on a live television variety show. The role earned him a Tony nomination for Best Actor in a Musical and gave him the chance to show off a softer side of his voice and acting. It’s a lovely reminder that Curry’s musical talent went well beyond the larger-than-life characters he became famous for.

Tim Curry brought unmatched theatricality to all his musical roles. In “Me and My Girl,” he radiated bouncy charm. In “The Threepenny Opera,” his vocals dripped with dark, cynical seduction. Later, as Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol,” he charmingly balanced bitter miserliness with a rich, soaring transformation.

And then came King Arthur in “Spamalot,” where Curry found himself ruling a kingdom populated by killer rabbits, unhelpful Frenchmen, Knights who say “Ni!” and, for reasons absent from your history books, men galloping about while clopping two coconut shells together. Through it all, Curry plays Arthur with the solemn royal dignity one might expect from a king. In “Find Your Grail,” he deploys his musical-theatre grandeur in pursuit of the sacred chalice, while “I’m All Alone” gives him a beautifully straight-faced comic moment. It’s Curry doing what he does best: treating utter nonsense as though civilization depends upon it, then singing about it magnificently. His performance reminded us to “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.”

What ties Curry’s career together isn’t the variety of his credits, but his refusal to behave like a conventional leading man. While Hollywood and Broadway like their stars categorized, Curry was more interested in characters letting him push boundaries and have a good time. No matter the role, he threw himself into it with the same theatrical commitment. He never needed a character to be traditionally likable to make them magnetic. Outrageous, ridiculous, sinister, or absurd, he’d be the one we’d all leave talking about. Curry gave a voice to the misfits and outcasts, while making being unconventional look like the most fun in the world.

What’s your favorite Tim Curry musical performance? Have you ever seen him live? Let us know in the comments