Tim Curry had no prior warning. It was a massage therapist who noticed that something was wrong, and hours later the actor was undergoing brain surgery.
It was June 2012 when a massive stroke robbed him of the use of his legs and partially paralyzed the left side of his face. Curry, who had made history as Dr. Frank-N-Furter and Pennywise, had to relearn how to speak from scratch. In an interview with CBS Sunday Morning in October 2025, he recounted it without dramatics: the wheelchair became part of his daily life and he was never able to regain the ability to walk, something he also confirmed in his memoir, ‘Vagabond’.
The British actor, born in 1946 in Cheshire, died on August 25, 2026, at his home in Los Angeles at the age of 80. His father had died of a stroke when Curry was only 10 years old.
Thirteen years after losing his mobility, he continued working, speaking about his condition with humor and treating each interview as another form of resistance.