With all the media attention on the death of country singer Dolly Parton, the shocking floods in Nepal and President Trump’s ongoing spat with Canada, you might have missed another sad bit of news, the death of longtime character actor Tim Curry.
Curry was a presence in every movie he appeared in and was instantly recognizable by his cartoonish, made-for-Hollywood smile.
Here I’ve written about some of his roles. They may not be his subjective best work or even his most memorable, but they were my personal favorites:
Herkermer Homolka, Congo (1995): Curry, in a role that almost seems like a proto-Borat, is first introduced as a benefactor who wants to help fund Dr. Peter Elliot’s effort to bring his study subject, a gorilla named Amy, to the place where she was born in war-torn Congo. It isn’t long before Curry’s Homolka encounters liquidity problems and he’s exposed by Ernie Hudson’s Captain Monroe Kelly as a man obsessed with legends of the Lost City of Zinj. The jungle-swallowed city is said to contain vast riches in the form of diamonds and a mine unlike any other in the world, Curry’s Homolka reminds the other characters loudly and often. He believes it’s close to where Elliot is taking Amy.
Curry gets one of the funniest scenes in the movie when Delroy Lindo’s Congolese warlord, amid a tense negotiation over bribe money, gets angry, turns to Curry and shouts “Stop eating my sesame cake!” An animated GIF is worth a thousand words:
Curry’s character is bumbling, single-minded, oblivious to danger, and an absolute pleasure to watch in a film that was a major spectacle even if the script didn’t quite hold up its end against a great cast and outstanding special effects.
Darkness, Legend (1985): It’s surprising how few people seem to have heard of or seen Legend considering it stars Tom Cruise and Mia Sara, with Curry as the villain and Ridley Scott – still basking in the triumphs of Alien and Bladerunner – in the director’s chair.
Legend was an oddball by the standards of the time, with dream-like, almost hallucinogenic cinematography and an ambient score by German electronic music pioneers Tangerine Dream. There were very few stabs at live-action fantasy epics at the time because of the cost, difficulty and questions over whether audiences would respond, which wouldn’t be definitively answered until 2001 with Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings.
Here we get classic Curry as the villain, albeit in heavy makeup with prosthetic horns, fangs and head ridges worthy of a Klingon:
It’s still an epic if limited performance, and if you’ve never seen this one, you owe it to yourself to check out one of the weirdest films of the 80s.
Mr. Hector, Home Alone 2 (1992): For the sequel to the beloved McCaulay Culkin movie about a kid accidentally left at home during a family vacation, Curry’s character took on the duties of Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern, the adults who were repeatedly foiled and humiliated by Culkin’s character, Kevin, the first time around.
In the sequel, which also features a certain future president in a cameo, Curry plays the suspicious concierge at The Plaza Hotel in New York City, where Kevin is once again alone after being forgotten for a second time by his family. I don’t recall exactly how the script writers engineered a second bout of parental amnesia, but kids didn’t mind. I know because I was one of them, and I ate this crap up.
Here we have Curry at his most Curry-ness. I mean, just look at that smile:
Curry’s performance turned a rote repeat plot into a genuine adventure as he grows increasingly suspicious of Kevin. As the movie progresses he takes desperate measures to catch the slippery kid and prove he’s been living it up in the hotel by forging his father’s signature and using his credit cards. This was, after all, the early 90s when identity theft wasn’t even on most people’s radar. Credit card companies definitely wouldn’t call you to confirm if you just ordered a dozen pizzas to a hotel room in a city you don’t live in.
Curry did an impressive volume of voice work over the years, much more than most people realize, and while he provided voices to some of my favorite after-school cartoons as a kid, the most memorable was in Gargoyles, the ahead-of-its time Disney animated series about gargoyles turned into stone statues during the dark ages, then reanimated in modern-day New York City where they’re forced to learn quickly and adapt to new dangers.
He appeared as IT in the 1990 TV adaptation of Stephen King’s novel, a one-off character in the pilot to the cult science fiction series Lexx, had a role in the abominable Charlie’s Angels reboot of 2000, and is perhaps best known for The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which I confess I have not seen. He also had memorable roles in The Hunt for Red October, Clue and Scary Movie 2.
Curry seemed to have no ego about his work, taking on embarrassing roles with relish and lending his voice to innumerable children’s TV classics. He was one of the last of the old breed of character actors, an inimitable talent, and he’ll be sorely missed.
Pain In The Bud 