Editing Tim Curry (section)

====''Rocky Horror''====
Curry's first full-time role was as part of the original London cast of the musical ''[[Hair (musical)|Hair]]'' in 1968, where he met [[Richard O'Brien]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.skyoneonline.co.uk/tcom/tim_curry.htm |title=Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic: Sky One |date=18 January 2008 |access-date=15 September 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080118092709/http://www.skyoneonline.co.uk/tcom/tim_curry.htm |archive-date=18 January 2008 |url-status=dead }}</ref> who went on to write Curry's role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter in ''[[The Rocky Horror Show]]'' (1973).<ref name="Guardian 2006-10-20">{{cite web |url=http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1927272,00.html |title=We were all going to join this street theater troupe. Tim got a job in Hair the next day. All he had to do was sing |access-date=26 March 2008 |first=Mark |last=Brown |date=20 October 2006 |work=[[The Guardian]] |location=London}}</ref> Curry recalled his first encounter with the project:
{{blockquote|I'd heard about the play because I lived on [[Paddington Street]], off [[Baker Street]], and there was an old gym a few doors away. I saw Richard O'Brien in the street, and he said he'd just been to the gym to see if he could find a muscleman who could sing. I said, "Why do you need him to sing?" [laughs] And he told me that his musical was going to be done, and I should talk to [[Jim Sharman]]. He gave me the script, and I thought, "Boy, if this works, it's going to be a smash."<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/146232172/Tim-Curry-intervirew | title=Curry Prefers the Sidelight for Now |publisher=[[Newspaper Enterprise Association]] newspaper syndicate |author-link=Frank Lovece | first=Frank |last=Lovece |date=8 December 1992 |access-date=21 May 2013}}</ref>}}

Originally, Curry rehearsed the character with a German [[Accent (sociolinguistics)|accent]] and [[peroxide]] blond hair, and later, with an American accent. In March 2005, in an interview with [[Terry Gross]] of [[NPR]]'s ''[[Fresh Air]],'' he explained that he decided to play Dr. Frank-N-Furter with an English accent after listening to an English woman say, "Do you have a house in town or a house in the country," and decided, "Yes, [Dr. Frank-N-Furter] should sound like [[Elizabeth II|the Queen]]."<ref name="Gross">{{cite episode |last=Gross |first=Terry |title=Star of 'Spamalot,' Actor Tim Curry |series=Fresh Air |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4679116 |network=[[NPR]] |date=15 March 2005 |access-date=8 October 2015}}</ref>

Curry originally thought the character was merely a laboratory doctor dressed in a white lab coat. However, at the suggestion of director Sharman, the character evolved into the diabolical [[mad scientist]] and [[transvestite]] with an upper-class [[Belgravia]] accent. An immediate hit, a reviewer at the premiere in London in June 1973 wrote Curry gives a "garishly [[Bowiesque]] performance as the ambisextrous doctor."<ref>{{cite news |title=Rocky Horror Show opens in London – archive, 1973 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/jun/23/rocky-horror-show-opens-in-london-archive-1973 |access-date=21 October 2022 |work=The Guardian}}</ref> This change carried over to the 1975 film adaptation, ''[[The Rocky Horror Picture Show]]'',<ref name="Film Talk">{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5sTIGLo79g | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120306122217/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5sTIGLo79g&gl=US&hl=en| archive-date=2012-03-06 | url-status=dead|title=Mark Caldwell interview with Tim Curry |publisher=Film Talk |date=September 1975 |work=Stoic Productions}}</ref> which made Curry a household name and gave him a [[cult following]]. Curry continued to play the character in London, Los Angeles, and New York City until 1975.

In an interview with NPR, Curry called ''Rocky Horror'' a "[[rite of passage]]", and added that the film is "a guaranteed weekend party to which you can go with or without a date and probably find one if you don't have one, and it's also a chance for people to try on a few roles for size, you know? Figure out, help them maybe figure out their own sexuality".<ref name=Gross />

In 2016, Curry played The Criminologist in the [[The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp Again|television film remake]] of ''The Rocky Horror Picture Show''.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.vulture.com/2016/08/tim-curry-endorses-foxs-rocky-horror.html | title=Tim Curry Is Perfectly Happy Fox's Rocky Horror Remake Is Doing the Time Warp Again (Again) |publisher=[[vulture.com]] | first=Jackson | last=McHenry | date=9 August 2016 |access-date= 9 August 2016}}</ref>