Inside stroke that left Tim Curry paralyzed as actor dies at 80…
Legendary actor Tim Curry, identified for playing unforgettable oddballs like Dr. Frank-N-Furter in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” died late Tuesday at his Los Angeles dwelling at 80
No foul play is suspected, legislation enforcement sources told TMZ, which broke the news Wednesday.
Curry’s official explanation for loss of life has not been revealed.
The Emmy Award winner, however, had battled severe health issues for more than a decade after struggling a major stroke that left him with lasting mobility and speech points.
As followers mourn the British-born actor and singer — whose profession spanned movie, tv and stage — right here’s a glance again at the health battles he confronted throughout his life.
Tim Curry has died at 80. ABC through Getty Images
A near-fatal stroke
In July 2012, Curry was getting a therapeutic massage when he suffered a major stroke. He later revealed in his memoir, “Vagabond,” launched last 12 months, that he initially didn’t notice what had occurred.
The three-time Tony nominee recalled feeling “a little out of sorts,” however didn’t suppose he wanted medical consideration. His therapeutic massage therapist disagreed and called 911 — a call that Curry believed saved his life.
“I probably owe my life to the fact that he ignored me, went with his instinct and called an ambulance,” Curry wrote. He was 66 at the time.
The actor — who delighted and terrified followers as Pennywise in the 1990 Stephen King miniseries “It” — recalled that paramedics turned alarmed after checking his important indicators and rushed him to the nearest hospital.
Curry was sedated before present process an emergency craniectomy, a life-saving process during which medical doctors take away a part of the cranium to provide a dangerously swollen mind room to develop and relieve stress.
“It turned out that my brain was inflamed enough, or filled with enough blood that bone from my skull had to be removed and implanted into my abdomen to keep my brain, and me, alive,” he wrote. “When I emerged from the hospital, I had to wear a sort of protective helmet as my brain was literally exposed to the elements.”
Curry turned a breakout star after showing as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” twentieth Century Fox/Shutterstock
The “Clue” star realized after the surgical procedure that he had suffered a major ischemic stroke attributable to two blood clots that blocked blood movement and oxygen to his mind.
“After regaining consciousness, I could comprehend words but they did not register or settle without effort. Life was exceedingly dull, monotonous, and uncertain for a long while,” Curry wrote.
“My skull had been smashed in to save my life,” he continued. “That’s plenty to process. I needed the rest and slept a lot.”
Life after the stroke
Curry spent months in the hospital after the stroke, which struck the proper hemisphere of his mind and left the left aspect of his physique paralyzed.
Curry suffered a major stroke in 2012 that left him partially paralyzed. FilmMagic
“I don’t know when the paralysis set in; initially it just felt very strange that the left side of my body had gone numb,” he said in “Vagabond.”
The health disaster also affected his short-term reminiscence and quickly robbed him of his ability to talk.
“That part was exceptionally frustrating, because thoughts were forming again, but articulating them was such a monumental stretch,” he recalled. “Being unable to string together and clearly deliver a sentence was absolute misery for somebody who values words and conversation as much as I do.”
Curry later entered a rehabilitation middle, “where the real exercises began: to retrieve my ability to speak clearly, to work on smiling and facial expressions, and to try using my hand and adapting to my new normal.”
The stroke left Curry reliant on a wheelchair and prompted him to shift a lot of his work towards voice appearing.
Last 12 months, he provided a uncommon glimpse into his condition when he appeared in his wheelchair alongside his “Rocky Horror Picture Show” co-stars at a screening marking the musical’s fiftieth anniversary.
“I still can’t walk, which is why I’m in this silly chair, and that’s very limiting. So I won’t be singing and I won’t be dancing very soon. I still have real problems with my left leg,” Curry told the viewers.
Curry said in 2025 that he still couldn’t stroll as a result of his stroke more than a decade prior. Getty Images
Looking again at Curry’s health
Curry hadn’t publicly disclosed other major health issues previous to his 2012 stroke — however he was a heavy cigarette smoker during his appearing profession. He was famously photographed chain-smoking in full clown make-up between takes on “It.”
The day before his stroke, he had smoked three packs of Marlboro Reds.
“I won’t be doing that again!” he told the Guardian last 12 months. The health scare prompted him to stop smoking.
Cigarette smoking is taken into account one in all the top modifiable threat elements for stroke, with people who smoke a pack a day going through as much as a sixfold larger threat of getting a stroke in contrast with nonsmokers.
Curry also spoke overtly about his past use of gear, including cocaine and cannabis. Later, he said alcohol turned a crutch, main him to spend time in rehab to get his ingesting under management.
Still, the actor rejected the label of alcoholic.
“I don’t think I ever quite qualified, really,” Curry told the Guardian.
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