English actor-singer Tim Curry died at his home in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles, California, on August 25. He was 80. The cause and manner of death were not given. His longtime manager, Marcia Hurwitz, confirmed to the media that he “passed away peacefully.”Curry battled multiple health issues in the years leading up to his demise, ever since he suffered a major stroke in July 2012 while taking a massage. At the time, he required brain surgery and experienced mobility troubles on his left side, for which he used a wheelchair until his final days. The Rocky Horror Picture Show star also dealt with short-term memory loss.In an October 2025 interview with The Guardian, Tim Curry recalled meeting Donald Trump at the Plaza Hotel in New York City in the early 1990s, where he was filming Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992).While Trump owned the luxury hotel with his first wife Ivana, they were already divorced at the time after his affair with Marla Maples hit the front pages. Curry remembered that the moment he came across the real estate tycoon, he was looking for the director Chris Columbus to introduce him to his girlfriend Maples.“He was very anxious to find Chris Columbus. He said, ‘I’ve got to get Marla to meet Chris Columbus because she’s a brilliant actress.’ And I thought: ‘Yeah, I’m sure,’” Tim stated.Meanwhile, Ivana Trump was managing the hotel at the time and had knocked on the actor’s door and asked, “Are you happy in your room?” and “Do you like the way it looks?”Tim Curry, who played the shady concierge Mr Henry at the Plaza Hotel, remembered he actually “loathed” the room’s interiors, which were seemingly Ivana’s designs.Exploring further Tim Curry’s final big interview from last fallMore than ten months before his passing, Tim Curry sat down with Guardian’s Chris Godfrey to promote his memoir Vagabond and speak about his career and personal life for a cover story titled:“Tim Curry: sexuality, surviving a stroke – and 50 years of stardom.”The Englishman shared how it was “difficult” not to see his book as a “kind of finale,” adding:“I’m very aware that I’m lucky. I’m astonished actually at how ambitious I’ve been. I didn’t think of myself as ambitious at all.”Curry said comedy was his favorite genre, which became a “coping mechanism” after his stroke. He explained:“The day before I had the stroke, I smoked three packs of Marlboro Reds. I won’t be doing that again!”Between his stroke and the COVID-19 pandemic, he had an “appalling amount of time to reflect,” which ultimately led to the memoir.“I tried to be as absolutely truthful as possible. I couldn’t see the point of doing it otherwise, really. It gave me energy, I must say. That was great. It was partly, I think, the energy of a new playground,” Tim Curry said.On matters of his heart, he said it was nobody’s “f**king business.” It is noteworthy that Tim Curry never married or had children.When asked whether he took risks by abusing cocaine and alcohol despite a warning from a nurse (who drew his blood on the sets of murder mystery comedy Clue) that he was prone to having a heart attack, Curry noted:“Risky is the best way to be.”He said the same about his androgynous role as Dr Frank-N-Furter on The Rocky Horror Picture Show.“I did think it was risky and indeed it was. But I like risky. I would choose risky over anything. That’s the best way to be”Tim Curry spoke fondly about his parents and reminisced about spending a nomadic childhood as a military kid (his dad was a chaplain in the Royal Navy).“It sounds awful, but I thought I kind of had it, and I was just waiting to be discovered,” he joked.About the book’s title Vagabond, Tim Curry said it was inspired by his life of moving from one place to another and not getting too attached to a single place. However, he admitted that the British sea is “terribly important” to him and “the colder the better” it is.On playing villains in several movies, including Stephen King’s adaptation of It, Tim said he always tried to make the characters “amusing” and give them a “bit more edge.” Curry said he wasn’t particularly “God-fearing” but respected his religion as a Methodist Christian “very much.”“I think the values did, because Methodists are encouraged to live life simply and see it simply. And I think I’ve pretty much kept to that,” he explained.Tim Curry lost his father to a stroke-induced pneumonia when he was 11 and his dad was 49.“It was kind of oddly way too dramatic. I didn’t know how to behave really, because I knew it was going to be incredibly formative… I couldn’t reconcile it as being the truth,” the actor explained.The Star Wars actor also recalled trying to be the man of the house but couldn’t convince his mother or anybody else. Eventually, he discovered his mom was bipolar, and even came at him once with a kitchen knife.Elsewhere, Tim Curry spoke about being bullied at boarding school for his “smart mouth,” studying English and drama at the Birmingham University, moving to London to pursue an acting career, landing his debut role as a hippy in the 1968 production of Hair, and getting his breakthrough with Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show.About the pursuit of fame, Tim Curry noted:“I certainly don’t enjoy it, but I get it. And I play the game. Because, certainly, any kind of moving picture endeavour is so expensive now that you’d better come up with the goods and promote the sh*t out of it.”Tim Curry said his favorite film was Muppet Treasure Island (1996) and that he’d loved to work with the Muppets again.Losing his mother in 1999 at age 80 and later his sister to a brain tumor at 60 further changed Tim Curry’s outlook. He said he’d want to be remembered as someone who “took it on the chin.” However, he didn’t believe in hell or heaven, nor did he fear death.Tim Curry was last seen in the 2016 remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. When asked whether he had the career he wanted, he acknowledged having “opportunities” and his will to keep showing up. About his priority, he said it’s “life first,” however:“I’ll sure as hell make sure I get it together to do a part well. I actually work very hard. I have to. Some people can just sail in and deliver.”Donald Trump played a cameo in Home Alone 2 and was seen meeting 10-year-old Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin), who asked him for directions to the hotel lobby. Trump told the kid it was “down the hall to the left.”The U.S. President later claimed the director “begged” him to be in the movie and he “didn’t want to do it.” However, Columbus repeatedly denied it and told The San Francisco Chronicle in April 2026 that he was “desperate” to film inside the Plaza Hotel but would never “beg” a non-actor to make an appearance.Not only that, but the director claimed to Business Insider in 2020 that Trump “bullied” him to be in the movie and even said they would get the location only if he was given screen time.