Tim Curry’s 10 Most Memorable TV Roles, Ranked
Tim Curry, who turns 79 today, has had countless iconic film roles — from The Rocky Horror Picture Show to Annie to Clue to Legend to The Three Musketeers to Home Alone 2 to … well, you get the idea. But given Curry’s massive body of cinematic work, it’s easy to forget that arch-eyebrowed legend also found a home on TV through the years, portraying everything from villains to … well, it was mostly villains. But Curry also showed up on family sitcoms, musicals, countless cartoons, and one made-for-TV movie where he danced with a cartoon skeleton.
Here are 10 of Curry’s all-time most memorable TV appearances, ranked from worst to best.
10The Worst Witch (1986)
Curry’s photo took centerstage on the poster, but really, Fairuza Balk, Diana Riggs, and Charlotte Rae were the stars of this UK children’s made-for-TV movie about a young witch (Balk) who’s struggling in her classes at Rae’s Academy for Witches. Curry plays the Grand Wizard, who sports a massive pink cape and struts his stuff in front of a green screen during his campy musical number, “Anything Can Happen on Halloween.”
9Over the Top (1997)
Okay, maybe it’s unfair to use the phrase “most memorable” to describe this one, since you almost definitely don’t remember this sitcom — one of only two that Curry ever starred in. But that’s not necessarily the show’s fault; it aired its premiere episode opposite the World Series, and industry gossip held that the show was pulled after only three episodes due to messy relationship drama between one of the show’s producers and the ABC Network president.
The show (which was inspired by Curry’s real-life friendship with Potts) had Curry playing a down-on-his-luck soap opera star, who seeks refuge at a luxury hotel managed by his ex-wife (Potts). While the show isn’t mind-blowing, it’s interesting to see Curry try for a flawed hero, rather than a villain — and if nothing else, the show can boast giving Steve Carrell his first major role.
8Family Affair (2002)
Curry’s second attempt to lead a sitcom came five years later on the WB — and yes, this was a remake of the 1966 show of the same name. Curry played traditional British butler Mr. Giles French, opposite Gary Cole as Bill Davis, a bachelor who has to care for his deceased brother’s three young children. The family comedy got pulled after 13 episodes; after it ended, Curry went back to only appearing on TV as a guest star.
7Roseanne, “Promises, Promises”/ “Glengarry, Glen Rosey” (1993)
©Carsey-Werner / Courtesy: Everett Collection.
Curry appeared in a two episode arc on Roseanne as Roger, Dan’s charming business associate who woos Roseanne’s coworker Nancy (Sandra Bernhard) and entices Dan into a real estate deal — then skips town, leaving Dan to deal with the incipient financial disaster.
6The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do the Time Warp Again (2016)
Curry’s earliest star turn — and perhaps his most timeless role — was as Dr. Frank N. Furter, the fishnet-wearing villain (or was he the hero?) of the 1975 cult musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show. A 2012 stroke required Curry to use a wheelchair for mobility and largely led him to retire from live-action film and TV — aside from his loving performance as the Criminologist in the 2016 Fox version of the musical.
5Psych, “American Duos” (2007)
Curry plays the mean, smug, hypercritical and thoroughly Simon Cowell-ish Nigel St. Nigel on the season two premiere of Psych. Predictably, there are many, many attempts on Nigel’s life, none of which make him any nicer. Curry seems to be having a blast as the thoroughly unlikeable St. Nigel, who cannot stop himself from dubbing his would-be assassin the “worst murderer ever.”
Five seasons later, Curry’s former Clue co-stars Lesley Ann Warren, Martin Mull and Christopher Lloyd would team up for a Psych homage to their 1985 comedy.
4Wiseguy, “Dead Dog Records” (1989)
The undercover FBI drama Wiseguy is today best-remembered as the first series to regularly focus on multi-episode story arcs, as opposed to self-contained episodes. Curry showed up in six episodes as Winston Newquay, an unscrupulous music producer battling for control of the off-puttingly named Dead Dog Records.
Not to give too much away, but the story arc features cameos by Debbie Harry and Glenn Frey, and culminates in Curry’s character having a grief-induced nervous breakdown after his best friend dies from vigorous sex — a nervous breakdown that causes him to don black leather and believe that he’s Elvis. Honestly, they just don’t make ’em like this anymore.
3The Wild Thornberrys (1998-2004)
(c) Paramount/courtesy Everett Collection
Curry’s animated voice-acting career began in 1988 on The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible (he played the serpent in the garden of Eden and Judas Iscariot, natch). In the decades that followed, he showed up on countless animated shows, from forgotten oddities like Capital Critters and Gravedale High, to beloved children’s shows like Batman: The Animated Series and Aaahh!!! Real Monsters. But Curry truly made his mark as Nigel Thornberry, father to an offbeat clan of nature documentarians, in 92 episodes and one feature film.
Nigel Thornberry was originally conceived as a solo adventurer in a comedic cartoon for adults; only once the show moved to Nickelodeon did the rest of the Thornberry family enter the picture. In a 2002 interview with UGO, Curry explained that Nigel’s distinct nasal voice was inspired by the animators’ rough design of the character: “I looked at his face and he looked like one of those bomber pilots from WWII.”
2Tales From the Crypt, “Death of Some Salesman” (1993)
© HBO / Courtesy: Everett Collection
In the fifth season premiere episode of HBO’s campy horror anthology series, Curry played the mother, father, and young daughter of a murderous family who give traveling conman Ed Begley Jr. more than he bargained for. The performance garnered him his first (and only!) Primetime Emmy nomination. In fact, this Emmy nod marks the only time Curry was nominated for any of the major film or TV awards — thought he has been nominated for three Tonys and a Grammy, and won a Daytime Emmy in 1991 for the children’s animated series Peter Pan and the Pirates.
1It (1990)
Everett Collection
Curry was the first actor to take on the role of the shapeshifting, multi-dimensional monster at the heart of Stephen King’s It. Malcom McDowell and Alice Cooper were in the mix for the role, and producers were not sure that the actor, best known for comedy and musical theater, could play a creature out of every child’s nightmares. But Curry more than rose to the occasion, dropping his usual wry British villainy for a New York accent and vicious, pointy teeth that made an impression on the miniseries’ 30 million-plus viewers.
The role garnered praise from no less than King himself, who told Yahoo in 2015, “Obviously the piece of casting that worked the best in the show was Tim Curry as Pennywise. At the time, there was some doubt about it, because he hadn’t played a part like that before. You got to be pretty gutsy as an actor to say, ‘I’m going to put on clown makeup and play a villain.’”
Emily Perkins, who played the young Beverly Marsh in the film, recalled to Yahoo that Curry “would sit in his chair chain-smoking in his make-up. Whenever the kid actors got too close, he would grin at us with his horribly pointed teeth. He really tried to intimidate us, because he wanted the fear to be real in our performances. He didn’t make any effort to be nice, at least not to me!”
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March 2023
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