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Posted on Jan 17, 2016

40 Times Tim Curry Definitely Didn't Talk About Rocky Horror

Tim Curry never talks about Rocky Horror, right? WRONG! In honour of him joining the cast of the 2016 remake, we've delved into the archives to bring you four decades worth of his most insightful quotes about that iconic role.

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"I met Richard (O'Brien) quite by accident on the street one day when he was trying to find a Rocky. We went from there. It's brought me some good things - and no, I don't think playing a transvestite has done me any harm...Frank N Furter is a very responsible part. He's the dynamic of show - he's the one who makes things happen. It's such a witty part..."

Tim Curry - Rocking On Down The Kings Road by Michael Leech - Plays And Players – December 1973

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"The 27-year-old actor admits that it was not without a few trepidations that he undertook the leading role in The Rocky Horror Show some months ago in London. 'But,' he quickly adds, 'I just thought it was such a good part, people would know you were acting. I mean, obviously, if you brought it off, you brought it off as an actor and not as a rent-a-freak'…"

Tim Curry - Tim Curry: More Than Flash In His Plans by Gregg Kilday - Los Angeles Times - 1974

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“It takes a certain amount of courage to play Frank.”(The costume involves a corset, black stockings, high heels, and little else.) “But the only thing I’m sure about as a performer is that you have to be dangerous. If you’re going to take a risk, take a big one. It’s like the circus. You’re on a tightrope, and the people come to watch you fall. If you fall with your whole heart, then that’s all right. You have to be as brave as you can in your work. Give as much blood as you can.”

Tim Curry - Tim Curry Spices The Rocky Horror Show by Bart Mills -
After Dark - March 1975

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Interviewer: Was The Rocky Horror Show the first time you had been on Broadway?

TC: Yes.

I: People must identify you with the character of Frank N Furter though.

TC: Some want to. Of course, they’re deeply disappointed. It’s not been a problem.

I: Do you like the film as well as the play?

TC: I think it’s quite different, really. I don’t know. I can’t really relate to the film very well. I still feel sick when I see it.

I: The look of the character changed from at least the L.A. production to screen.

TC: Yes, he got a little more high fashion. I don’t know whether I like that or not.

Tim Curry - Profile by Susan Pile - Interview Magazine - March 1976

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"'It would take me an hour and a half to put on make-up and as soon as the mascara started going on i'd become really caustic and horrible. People would actually leave the dressing room.' The performance over, he would have the make-up off in two minutes flat – always careful to leave the leery bitch in the theatre where he belonged. But it says a lot for the way he took hold of the part (or the part took hold of him) that, even now, strangers seem surprised not to be meeting someone a little more - well outrageous. When he was guest of honour recently at a Rocky Horror party in, of all places, Austin, Texas, where the film has been shown for the past year, the next day’s newspapers were moved to comment that he was the straightest looking person there. (Curry explained to the gathering that Frank had become overexcited and was back in the hotel room under heavy sedation)."

Tim Curry - The Complete Works of Tim Curry by Mick Brown - Honey Magazine – Aug 1977

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"'Rocky Horror mania doesn't surprise me', he asserts. 'It's a very good joke, a kind of Rock and Roll Oz, and it just took some time to find its audience.' Though Tim is pleased about the Rockymania that has been sweeping America, he doesn't visit the many Rocky Horror conventions that have popped up around the country. 'I don't like those conventions', he says. 'I get the feeling the audience is being exploited and I don't want to be party to that.'

Tim Curry - The Rocky Horror Show's Tim Curry: He Doesn't Want To Exploit Fans - preView - 1978

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"'I have long since stopped trying to break the Rocky Horror image. Obviously I haven't been typed-cast, I'm here, aren't I?' Here is a booth at Sadis where remarkable English actor compounds his reputation for versatility by seeming nothing like either of those risky personas (Frank or Mozart). While Mozart fidgets all over the stage in garish brocades and the drag scientist has a preference for black garter belts, Curry, 34, is positively beige in a sports jacket, his tie, and a quiet awareness with which he ducks fallout from his maverick career. 'At this point people seem to be able to do "The Tim Curry Interview" – the old "how's he going to shake the Rocky thing" – without really talking to me at all...'"

Tim Curry - Tim Curry's Obscene Mozart by Linda Winer - Daily News - Feb 1981

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Interviewer: I know you've had it up to here talking about this, but just briefly, what effect did The Rocky Horror Picture Show have on your career?"

TC: Well it probably stopped me having a film career for a while, because I think that when it sort of worked, that it worked so strongly, that it left an image that was hard for producers to see through. It's had another effect in that it's practically a pension for me - which is a very nice effect. But it also - without it, really - I wouldn't have made an impact on America so it's been wonderful really...

Tim Curry - Annie Publicity Interview - 1981

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“'One week we were doing a Marxist melodrama called Give The Gaffers Time To Love You, which was so bad they didn't even invite the critics, and the next week it was Rocky Horror. Luckily by then I'd also done six months at the Glasgow Citizens where, unlike the Court, they told you about how to be physically starry and charismatic all over the place, so when they wanted Frank N Furter for Rocky Horror I came ready prepared. We only thought it would last a week, but then we hit on the idea of playing in derelict cinema as that was where the show was anyway set, and we started off down the Kings Road from the Court, stopping first at the Chelsea Classic and then when they pulled that down we moved on to the Old Essoldo and all in all it lasted six years.'

Curry only did the first six months in London before moving on to Los Angeles with the show. 'It went wonderfully there, and was an utter disaster on Broadway, I think because we were billed as the hit of London and LA so a lot of tight-lipped New Yorkers sat there saying "but not here kid". Then we made the film and again that looked like being a disaster; at the first screening rows of Fox executives just sat there stunned, mouths open, wondering what to do with this lulu which had already flopped on Broadway. But as these things happen, a new marketing executive had just joined the studio and as a kind of impossible test they gave him the cans of the film and told him to think up a strategy for marketing them. What he realised was that the film already had a late night horror audience ready made for it, so he began the midnight screenings all over the country and now the film is a teenage right of passage all over the world, which makes a nice change from playing it to 200 angry nurses on Broadway. It's become a sort of international club, though I tend to stay away. That’s because I want to stay alive.'"

Tim Curry - Attacking Spirit For The Musical Moment – The Times – May 1982

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"'I wouldn't say I am haunted by The Rocky Horror Show', the actor says of his best known role, that of the sweet transvestite Dr Frank N Furter, in the biggest musical cult of all time. 'Most of the time people don't believe I'm the one who was in it. I was thrown out of the Waverly – the Greenwich Village movie house – when it was being shown there. They thought I was an impostor.'

Elaborating on the incident, Curry says: 'The midnight screening was sold out. A friend had called the theatre and said I was coming. When I got there people came up and touched me. Then this woman who looked like an old fashioned usherette, said [in Brooklynese] "excuse me but are you sure you're Tim Curry? Could you smile for me please?" 20 minutes into the film, she threw me and my friends out, "declaring you are an imposter!"'

Tim Curry - Clueing In On Curry, Or Is That Really You, Tim? by Stephen M Silverman - New York Post - Dec 1985

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"Frank N Furter was a dangerous role for a performer. Curry was so convincing, many people found it hard to separate the actor from the man – and if casting directors felt the same way, a promising career could've been destroyed. But Curry says that's not why it took him a long time to get another screen role. 'Rocky Horror did slow my film career, but not because I was type cast,' Curry admits. 'The film wasn't successful until two or three years after it came out, so it was hard, but not because people saw me as Frank N Furter but because the film was a bomb.'

The madcap musical comedy eventually did become a success as a cult classic. A huge success. And, a huge success in the film industry spells one thing; sequel. But in the case of Shock Treatment it was a sequel without the original's star. 'I turned down Shock Treatment because I didn't want to play Frank N Furter again', Curry recalls.' I thought it had been done. We talked about me doing another part in it, but I just think that if you've pulled off a particular style of work - you've done it. I don't like sequels.' He also particularly didn't care for this sequel. 'I didn't think it was well written', Curry says.' I think the actual production itself was very rushed. The Studio cut the budget by a third a few weeks before shooting started, so they compressed the whole thing. I would like to have worked with the people again, because it was a very happy company, but I think once is enough. Always.' Especially if you do it right the first time. 'I'm very proud of Rocky Horror', Curry says. 'I think it's a very extraordinary film'.”

Tim Curry - Starlog Profile by William Rabkin - Starlog - May 1986

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“'I did that show forever' he says, temporarily forgetting that he doesn't want to talk about it. 'I did six months in London, six months in LA and then I did the movie, and then a couple of months in New York. It was enough…The cult thing has always been a bit peculiar to me, because it's so much more here than it is in England. It's always bewildering to me again when I first come back to America. Rocky acolytes still try to get in touch with me. But people don't go through my garbage any more, or line up in front of the apartment building.' He laughs when told of the Rocky Horror wedding that took place in a Virginia movie theatre after a midnight show. “I wonder what they've been through in 10 years.”

Tim Curry - The Many Features Of Tim Curry - The Washington Post – September 1988

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"'It's this peculiar tank that rolls on,' Curry says. 'About two years into - whatever you call it - the phenomenon, I found it immensely irritating because I felt it distorted the way people saw me growing. But having been through that irritation, I feel like a fond uncle now with a sort of badly behaved nephew. One of the great things it does do is every year introduce campus-age students around the world to my work and I think that's terrific.'"

Tim Curry - AFTER MOZART, SHAKESPEARE AND DR. FRANK-N-FURTER -Tim Curry's 3rd Genius - Or 4th? by Frank DeCaro - Newsday - December 1989

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"Even when he performed in sold out nightclubs and music halls, adoring fans continually yelled out ‘sing I’m Going Home’ and other Rocky Horror favourites. 'I was very pissed off about it for a while,' he admits. 'I’d gone on. But I learnt to let go. There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s not really a problem anymore. I’m very proud of it. It’s pretty amazing to star in a movie that’s run for fifteen years. It’s a classic of its kind.'”

Tim Curry - King Of Strange by Mark Morrison – US Magazine - Nov 1990

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"Despite his continuing image as the hip, heroic, “sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania,” Curry is now forty-six, a bit stocky, like a senior rocker. He laughs easily, often at himself, and talks about Frank N Furter as an indulgent father discusses his wayward son. 'I live with him quite comfortably now,' he says, 'but there was a period when I couldn’t stand him. At the height of the cult, people would follow me home, furtively pressing satanic literature into my hand. They’d go through my garbage. I used to be concerned that Frank N Furter was how I was actually perceived.'

Tim Curry - Broadway Alien - Vogue Magazine - December 1992

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"Then came the film version, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, in which he starred with Susan Sarandon.'People told me not to do it at the time,' he says, 'but I had done the show on stage, and I just thought it would be horrible watching someone else.' The movie opened and closed in about a minute. Only a few years later did the movie become a camp item, and audiences began turning up to see it on Saturday nights dressed up like the characters and ready to sing along. 'It probably held me back in the movies for a while,' Mr Curry says of playing a transvestite, 'but it was important to be brave. That movie was really the last gasp of the 60s.'

Over the years Mr. Curry has received thousands of letters in response to the film. 'It’s been a great gathering place for those who consider themselves misfits, sexual or otherwise,' he says. 'Aside from that, it’s the only guaranteed party they can go to every Saturday night without a date.'

Tim Curry - Give Tim Curry A Role And He'll Provide The Relish by Michele Willens – The New York Times – November 1993

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"'There is an annual raft of college kids, many of whom are at the point where they are deeply curious about their sexuality. And in the film they can see most varieties of it presented with a kind of muscular innocence and joy. It's a celebration. It's a key to a door. And a very useful one.' But however much it helps the undergraduates of Des Moines, Dundee or Durban, it caused havoc with Curry.

Talking about it now is still an intense experience for him. It is clear that, as he tries to be truthful about it, he has to go back over things he feels he's beginning to put behind him and from which he would rather move on. The fact that he finds it painful to talk about is the reason why this is the first big interview he's agreed to for over a decade. Now the rest of us mortals have limited sympathy for the troubles of stardom. But Curry's dilemmas are more interesting. Frank N Furter eventually terrified him. And, slightly gnomically, he explains why: 'It was totally bewildering. It's no fun being an icon because...', becoming quieter, more deliberate, more careful, 'it's hard for people to separate the performance from the person. There are people out there who thrive on divas and icons. They want people to be 100 per cent extraordinary. But iconography is dangerous ground because people are always reading these fucking runes and I have to read them, too, and please, I would like to have a life.'

It was the only time he swore. The irony is that, although he resents such personal intrusion, it was exactly what his performance invited. For that, and possibly other reasons, he doesn't entertain direct questions about his sexuality, wherein lies something of a contradiction as you're only asking them because of Frank N Furter.

'Sexuality seems to me to be a very private thing and I think Frank was a strong and sufficient statement. I'm not interested in banners or clouds of glory. People assumed I was Frank and eventually I reacted so strongly against it, I became chubby and plain.' He laughs again."

Tim Curry - The Rocky Career Show by Simon Fanshawe - Night & Day - May 1996

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Sinbad: It's got to be wild, all your body of work, all the stuff you've

done, still twenty years later that Rocky Horror Picture Show keeps

showing up...

TC: Uh-huh.

Sinbad: ... And people still see you and say, "That's the man, that's Dr.

Frank N Furter, man." [TC laughs]

TC: Well, it's sort of peculiar you know, because it's 22 years now it's

been running. And you know we made this movie for a million pounds, in 1974...

Sinbad: What's that turn into in American money?

TC: Well, about one and a half million dollars. And you know it's been

running for 22 years, and it's the movie that wouldn't go away. [laughs]

Sinbad: Now how long did it stay in the theater before they pulled it and it

became this sort of cult thing.

TC: Oh, it was a total disaster when we put it out. I think it ran for

about two and a half weeks, or three weeks, and they yanked it. And then a

really smart guy at Twentieth Century Fox kind of invented the midnight

movie curcuit. And he put it in a cinema called The Waverly in New York on

Sixth Avenue, and it just sort of took off. And people started talking back

to the screen. I'm told that the first person to talk back to the screen

was Marc Shaiman, who's a very famous film composer now. And it just sort

of started to happen, and then it became... there was a whole kind of

script...

Tim Curry - The Vibe – 1997

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Rosie: Our next guest has starred in numerous films, Broadway shows, and

animated cartoons. He jumped to stardom with his first film, The Rocky
Horror Picture Show, which I love, take a look.

[RHPS clip-- Wild and Untamed Thing]

Rosie: FRANK -N- FUR-TER! Please welcome Tim Curry!

Rosie: Lovely to see you again, Tim.

Tim: Very nice to see you, too.

Rosie: How are you?

Tim: I'm just fine.

Rosie: Yeah. Have you watched that lately, Rocky Horror?

Tim: Well now I really haven't. [laughs a little]

Rosie: You haven't? Cause I watch it at least twice a year. Sometimes like

if I'm up at 12 midnight I'll go it's the Rocky Horror Hour! And I pop it in.

Tim: It's kind of hard not to see it at Halloween. I'm kind of the Prince

of Halloween. But when I heard that you were going to do a "Wild and
Untamed Thing" I thought I'd come looking like a sort of elderly banker.

Tim Curry - The Rosie O'Donnell Show - 1997

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Tim: Well I think it's terribly important when you're playing bad guys to make them... I think you have to be the guy they love to hate, you know. And the fact is that, you know, all of us would like to behave badly. All of us would like to behave you know, in an underhanded way perhaps, all of us would like to have the kind of power that bad guys have, and I think you know, it's important to show that it's fun.

Meredith: Now one of the most lovable bad guys that you've ever played was Frank N Furter. Obviously. And yet in a way it backfired on you in a sense that you've never quite been able to get beyond the role. You once said that in reaction to becoming that kind of an icon, you became plain and chubby, to use your words.

Tim: It's true actually. I mean, well, I think...

Meredith: You really set out to...

Tim: I didn't mean... I don't think anyone tries to get plain and chubby deliberately...

Meredith: It's worked for me.

Tim: But I think that, you know, that they're... I was sort of fairly astonished when I came to the States, and particularly when that whole thing started, because when I first came to America, I came with the play of the Rocky Horror Show. So I went from some tiny little studio apartment, grubbing around the streets of London, to sitting at Jack Nicholson's pool, you know, because it was a huge hit in L.A. And I looked around, and I saw all these people dealing with fame, and it was a big shock to me. I mean, I went out and got every biography I could find, to try and figure out how people dealt with it. And one of the things that I think happens in the States, which perhaps happens less in Europe, is that quite often Hollywood actors find something that they're good at, put a great big sort of bow on it, and do it really for the rest of their lives. And because there's such a huge market to cover, and so many media outlets, and even more since I started, that's it's very easy to get stuck with whatever the first image of you was, state, you know, nationwide, or even world-wide, which Frank N Furter very much was for me. And also, beyond that, I think that America is much more easily shocked by that kind of image, than perhaps Europe is.

Meredith: Well, you know men in underwear with garters is shocking no matter...

Tim: Well I figured...

Meredith: ...that's going to do it.

Tim: ...as long as you make it look good.

Tim Curry - The View - 1997

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Twiggy: You probably hate talking about Rocky Horror...But obviously it's such a huge part of what happened to you....

Tim: Absolutely.

Twiggy: Did any of you know at the time you were doing it that it was going

to become this extraordinary cult, for ever and ever and ever.......?

Tim: Well I don't think anyone can predict a cult, when I read it I thought,

'if they get this right, it's going to be a great big hit.'

Twiggy: And it was an extraordinary piece and you were amazing, absolutely

amazing.

Tim: People sort of forget that it started in this tiny theatre, the Theatre

Upstairs at the Royal Court, which only seated 60 people.

Twiggy: I wish I'd seen it there.

Tim: It was....it was pretty swell there, because it was in such a tiny space.

Twiggy: Do you think it was a bit before its time for Broadway?

Tim: Well, I think in some ways it was a bit AFTER it's time, I mean the Theatre

Of The Ridiculous was already a great big hit in New York.

Twiggy: This was after the film?

Tim: Yeah, '75 I guess we opened in New York. I remember I stayed at the

Algonquin.

Twiggy: Lovely hotel.

Tim: They got me a suite at the Algonquin which I thought was terribly grand and I discovered just how grand it was when they closed the play and I couldn't pay the bill. (laughter) It was incredibly embarrassing...

(Twiggy talks about critics and reviews closing plays and how badly actors

are then treated.)

Tim: It's true, I actually saw somebody literally cross the street in order not

to have to talk to me, the next day.

Twiggy: You're joking?!

Tim: And I always remember that they had booked me on the Today Show, which is the sort of grandest morning show/breakfast show. We'd had this first night party, I was pretty bleary, and the reviews had not been kind and I was just sitting there having to talk to them about what a despicable failure the show was."

Twiggy: How horrible.

Tim: It was really weird.

Twiggy: But was it just that one guy,the Times reviewer...?

Tim: It was Clive Barnes at the time, The Times reviewer who had loved it in

London and loved it in LA and...it's...it...you know...

Twiggy: Wrong time, wrong place, as you said?

Tim: I guess...pretty soon we were just sort of playing to 200 bewildered

nurses, who had got free tickets...it was very...strange..."

Twiggy: I wonder what they made of your outfit?

Tim: Well I think they quite liked it actually. The Manager at the Algonquin was incredibly kind and I said, 'Look, you know they've closed the play, I can't pay the bill' and he said 'Well, you'll be back, pay me when you can' and actually I came back that summer with Travesties which was a huge hit and won like, five Tony's and I always remember going into the Algonquin and I had it all done in 5 dollar bills and I counted them out onto the table and he said 'I knew you'd be back.' It was so sweet..."

Tim Curry - Twiggy’s People - 1998

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"The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which for years played at midnight in movie theaters across the country (and still does in some places) is not a topic Curry likes to revisit. 'Well, it would be pretty dumb not to distance myself,' he said. 'It was 25 years ago, give me a freaking break.' But audiences still celebrate it. 'Well, I do, too,' he said. 'I'm terribly proud of it. I should have the luck to be the star of a movie that's run for 25 years and that people are still inspired by, that kids love, that give them alternative patterns of sexuality that make them feel good about themselves. I love all of that. (But) I don't really want to answer another question about the meaning of Frank N Furter for the rest of my life. I think I did it, and enough already.'"

Tim Curry - Tim Curry to star in 'Family Affair' remake by Mike McDaniel – Houston Chronicle – 2002

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"He'd been acting for four years when he sang Tutti Frutti at the Rocky Horror audition and landed Frank N Furter. The film version, released in 1975, made him a cult star. 'Any part that makes you world famous has got to be a blessing, hasn't it?' he says of his defining role 'And any part in a film that's run for 30 years, which continues annually to introduce me to a new audience of young people, isn't bad either.'"

Tim Curry - Tim Curry’s Back On The Grail Trail by Nick Curtis - September 2006

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Eurogamer: But previously you've been best known for your performance in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which is still hugely popular more than 30 years on. Are you tired of talking about it yet?

Tim Curry: No. I accepted a long time ago that I'd be talking about it probably for the rest of my life, because it is an extraordinary phenomenon. It's the longest-running movie ever. That's a very weird legacy, but I'm really proud of it. I mean, it was my first film. Who knew?

Tim Curry - Eurogamer by Ellie Gibson - November 2008

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"Talk then moves on to Tim’s past films, and how his most famous roles are soon to be taken on in remakes. Clue, It and The Rocky Horror Picture Show are all rumoured to be getting new versions. 'It’s amusing to me, really, because Rocky Horror was a disaster when it came out. It’s since made a quarter of a billion or something, and Clue went straight down the toilet when it came out but has had a huge life on TV and DVD“

Tim Curry - Curry's coming home for Christmas - Wales Online -December 2009

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“It’s the oddest thing. It used to get up my nose a bit. Really it didn’t start becoming this big thing until after I had left it far behind. That was a bit confusing. It was extraordinary to have found that it has run for more than 35 years now, with each new generation latching on to it. It’s a pretty smart calling card. I am very proud of it.”

Tim Curry – First Chichester Visit For Tim Curry – West Sussex County Times -May 2011

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"Your first show on Broadway was The Rocky Horror Show. Given the popularity of the film, how do you look at that project now? 'With a sort of bemused tolerance. It’s neither a blessing nor a curse. I was lucky to get it.' There’s a story that you found Frank N Furter’s voice while speaking to a woman on a bus. Is that true? 'I started playing him as German and then I met a woman on a bus who said 'do you have a house in town or a house in the country' and I thought, 'that’s the voice!' What was your first opening night (for Rocky Horror) like? It was very exciting–when done successfully. I had to go on the Today Show the next day and they read the reviews - which were appalling. That brought me down. It was very cruel."

Tim Curry - Curtain Call: Tim Curry Discusses His Broadway Career - LA Magazine – June 2015

40 Times Tim Curry Definitely Didn't Talk About Rocky Horror

1. 1973

2. 1974

3. 1975

4. 1975

5. 1975

6. 1976

7. 1977

8. 1978

9. 1978

10. 1979

11. 1980

12. 1981

13. 1981

14. 1982

15. 1985

16. 1986

17. 1987

18. 1988

19. 1989

20. 1990

21. 1992

22. 1993

23. 1994

24. 1995

25. 1996

26. 1997

27. 1997

28. 1997

29. 1998

30. 2000

31. 2002

32. 2003

33. 2005

34. 2006

35. 2008

36. 2009

37. 2011

38. 2015

39. 2015

40. 2016

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