<
https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2026/aug/26/dr-frank-n-furter-tim-curry-rocky-horror-picture-show>
"Over the past decade, the issues of trans identity and gender fluidity
couldn’t have been more contemporary, and Tim Curry was an integral part of
what might be called their pre-history in pop culture. He was an icon – though
maybe now a dimly remembered icon – of the 70s underground cinema and
proto-punk.
Curry was a good-looking actor with a tremendous speaking and singing voice,
and a versatile performer – he got Tony nominations for his varied stage work
on Broadway as Mozart in
Amadeus, Alan Swann in
My Favorite Year (the part
Peter O’Toole played on screen) and as King Arthur in
Monty Python’s
Spamalot. But it was his strange destiny to be remembered for one role: at
once indelibly prominent and weirdly peripheral. He was the sensational Dr
Frank-N-Furter in the thoroughly outrageous
Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975),
the screen version of the 1973 stage show.
This was the drop-dead gorgeous “sweet transvestite from Transsexual,
Transylvania” in mascara and fish-nets, a vampiric sex outlaw who challenges
the dull complacency of the timid American teen couple, Janet and Brad, played
by Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick. These hapless straights had got lost and
found themselves in his exotic domain. Curry himself said that the movie
stymied his film career for many years, because of typecasting in a role that
could not really ever be repeated, and in fact a great deal of his income from
screen work from then on derived from voiceovers. But he also hinted that it
was a kind of pension, perhaps because of royalties from the million-selling
soundtrack LP.
Curry defined the role, defined the movie, and helped define other things
besides. Without Curry and Rocky Horror, there might be no Vivienne Westwood
Sex boutique and no punk. He was a part of the sexual peacock movement that was
upending the dullness and drear of the 70s. Curry swam briefly alongside Bolan
and Bowie on a tide of glam."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
