Tim Curry’s cause of death has been confirmed as coronary artery disease, one week after the British actor died at age 80.
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health listed coronary artery disease as the underlying cause in official documents obtained last week. The same records cited a history of stroke and kidney cancer as contributing factors, though neither was identified as the primary cause. No surgical procedures had been performed for any of the three conditions.
Curry died peacefully at his home in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles, on the night of Tuesday, Aug. 25. He had used a wheelchair since suffering a major stroke in 2012, and as recently as 2025, when The Rocky Horror Picture Show marked its 50th anniversary, he confirmed he still hadn’t regained his mobility.
Born Timothy James Curry in Cheshire, England, in April 1946, he lost his father, a Royal Navy chaplain, when he was just 12. He trained at the University of Birmingham before making his professional stage debut in the 1968 West End production of Hair. It was there that Curry met writer Richard O’Brien, a connection that would define his career.
Curry helped shape O’Brien’s mad-scientist character for a new stage musical, transforming an originally lab-coated German into the corseted, fishnet-clad Frank-N-Furter. That creation became The Rocky Horror Show, and later its 1975 film adaptation, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The movie flopped on release but went on to become the longest-running midnight movie in cinema history, turning Curry into a countercultural icon almost overnight.
His range stretched far beyond that single role. He earned a Tony nomination for playing Mozart in the 1981 New York production of Amadeus. He terrified a generation as Pennywise the Clown in the 1990 television adaptation of Stephen King’s It. He charmed family audiences as Wadsworth in 1985’s Clue and voiced Cardinal Richelieu in 1993’s The Three Musketeers, alongside numerous other film, television and voice roles.
Away from acting, Curry was also a recording artist, releasing three studio albums — Read My Lips, Fearless and Simplicity — which drew on his rock and jazz influences.
Actor Michael McKean was among the first to publicly pay tribute to his longtime friend. He shared that their final conversation together was full of “life and love and laughter.”
Curry originated the role of the flamboyant scientist Frank-N-Furter in the stage production before reprising it in the 1975 film adaptation, delivered in his now-iconic clipped drawl. The character’s lasting cultural impact was confirmed when Curry returned to participate in the 50th anniversary celebrations in 2025, despite his continued mobility challenges following the 2012 stroke that had reshaped his daily life.