Tim Curry Cause of Death Revealed: Rocky Horror Star Dies at 80
One week after the August 25 death of iconic actor Tim Curry at age 80, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has officially determined that coronary artery disease was the primary cause of his passing, according to People. The English actor, who died at his Los Angeles home, also had kidney cancer and a history of strokes listed as underlying causes.
Curry spent over a decade in failing health following a massive 2012 stroke that required brain surgery and left him unable to walk. Police quickly confirmed there was no suspicion of foul play at the time of his death. The late performer detailed those physical challenges in his 2025 memoir, Vagabond, providing a final firsthand account of his life behind the scenes.
Curry’s cultural footprint extends far beyond transgressive midnight screenings. In 1990, his terrifying turn as the evil clown Pennywise in the television miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s It terrified a generation of viewers, permanently embedding itself in the pop culture lexicon. On the cinematic front, his versatile character work ranged from playing con artist Rooster Harrigan in the 1982 musical Annie and Mr. Hector in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, to commanding genre fare like Ridley Scott’s 1985 fantasy Legend as Darkness, alongside 1985’s cult classic Clue.
He was equally prolific on the dramatic and historical spectrum, appearing in The Hunt for Red October and The Three Musketeers. Family and franchise favorites benefited heavily from his distinct vocal styling. Curry voiced Captain Hook in the series Peter Pan & the Pirates, Hexxus in the 1992 animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest, and Sir Nigel Thornberry in The Wild Thornberrys. He even entered the Star Wars galaxy, voicing Chancellor Palpatine, also known as the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, in Star Wars: The Clone Wars from 2012 to 2014. Before that, he was originally cast as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series before the role was recast and taken over by Mark Hamill.
His stage career was equally decorated. Curry earned a Tony nomination playing Mozart in the 1981 production of Amadeus, starred as the Pirate King in 1982’s The Pirates of Penzance, and played Alan Swann in the Broadway musical version of My Favorite Year. He also portrayed King Arthur in the London production of Monty Python’s Spamalot. Overshadowed by his acting work, his late 1970s and early 1980s musical career yielded three rock albums released via A&M Records: Read My Lips in 1978, Fearless in 1979, and Simplicity in 1981.
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