On August 25th, 2026, Dolly Parton died. She was 80. It was a bit of a blip for me because I hadn’t been that connected to her music or really her fame. And also because it was instantly followed by my husband saying, “Hey, did you know Tim Curry died?” immediately overtaking the previous news, because I often feel indebted to Tim Curry in ways I didn’t really understand until I was an adult.
Tim Curry also died August 25, 2026, at 80 (hmmm, make of this what you will…). I also found out upon that news and looking it up, that he and I share a birthday, which I never knew until now. (Make of this what you will as well.)
I couldn’t tell you when the first time it was that I saw Tim Curry because I don’t remember how old I was when I first saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show. In my teens, certainly. Sometime in the late 1980s. But I do remember the feeling when I first saw him in the movie as the elevator opens, in his glowing makeup and sly, flirty smile, but then especially as he flings off his cloak, revealing the full corseted, fishnet-stockinged outfit.
It was a fucking revelation.
I don’t think I really knew or fully understood then what I was feeling until much later. But I knew something had changed, something was different. Something was ALLOWABLE.
I was a very nerdy kid growing up in the Southeast, Virginia and North Carolina, but most of my teen years were in Greenville, NC in the mid to late 1980s. While a college town (meaning a little more open), it was still “The South” in that time period. Being gay or a transvestite was generally mocked or attacked, and thusly hidden, and “Queer” (as it is today) wasn’t even on the map yet as a mainstream thing.
In the parlance of the time, I was a “tomboy”. I eschewed dresses and makeup, and most girlie things. I loved sci-fi & fantasy, Dungeons & Dragons (which I still don’t think was “just a boy” thing, but the male numbers were indeed higher), video games, martial arts, swords and archery, grubbing about in the dirt, and didn’t really understand why I had to be a “girl”.
But I think I did understand that I was in a weird liminal space. I obviously was biologically female, but compared to my peers, I was tall and flat-chested, and was constantly referred to as “sir” when my hair was short. And due to my interests, and by general preference, I didn’t fit in with the girls. But I also didn’t fit in with the boys either because I wasn’t one. And I seemed to carry within me this deep sense of “Why do I need to be either? I have qualities of both.” There wasn’t a word for this back then.
When I saw Dr. Frank-N-Furter throw off his cloak, singing “Sweet Transvestite”, strutting and striding about proudly, there was this moment in which I saw both and all expressions of “gender” beautifully displayed. He was luscious and delightful, gorgeous and fabulous, and utterly, utterly masculine, all mixed into one. Even though it is supposedly mocking the transvestite qualities, here there was no shame offered or felt in the presentation. Tim Curry owned that role like it was the most normal thing in the world. He looked and felt so utterly comfortable, it seemed like the most natural thing to be.
I don’t remember if when I saw RHPS for the first time it was on VHS or at a “live” screening, but I did start going with friends to those live screenings afterwards. These were just the movie shown with a space for a “stage” in front of it, versus an actual live play (which I never saw until way later). The absolute joy of being in these rowdy crowds as people shouted the call-backs to the screen, throwing things around, often rushing up to the “stage” to perform scenes from the movie, just about EVERYONE jumping up to do the Time Warp together. And the entire audience breaking into whoops and cheers as the elevator opens and there is Dr. Frank-N-Furter, and then exuberant screaming as one in that same moment of throwing away the cloak. These were some of the most celebratory experiences of my life.
Just a few years ago, our community theater did a live play of RHPS and we went, my husband being a “Virgin” and thusly getting marked with a V in lipstick on his forehead, and bravely getting up on stage to do the Newbie thing. It was raucous and wild, the audience involved as ever, and as the play ended, he turned to me and said essentially that was one of the most pro-life (in the sense of joy and passion) and celebratory things he’d seen.
As I continued with my life, still with this sense of liminal existence, eventually, the culture started shifting in regards to recognition and inclusion (we still have a long, LONG way to go), and new terms continually arise. I am not a big label person. As a former therapist and half a Buddhist, I am wont to challenge the “stories” we build for ourselves, and identity, while super important, is one of those. I did eventually start trying out “Non-Binary” on forms and such. But it still didn’t fit. At one point, I noticed the term “Genderfluid” on my Kaiser paperwork as an option, so I chose that. Because that seems the closest to how I experience “gender” (which, trying to define that is a whole can of worms). To me, gender is a web, a flowing and eddying movement of qualities, masculine, feminine, neutrally human, rather than a tight binary of one or the other with maybe a bit in the middle. Some people identify more closely with a particular grouping of those qualities and that’s very fine. Some move from one grouping to another. Some flow in and out constantly. All real, all valid.
I could write about his long career in live and voice acting, and the other roles that I saw him in and liked (Clue, Legend, Earth 2), but it is Dr. Frank-N-Furter that dominates who Tim Curry was to me. Permission to exist “As Is” in this often savage world of confused ape creatures, even permission to throw off the cloak and be lusciously masculine all at once.
Thank you, Tim Curry, not only for bravely doing that role in the 1970s near the beginning of your career, but stepping into it like a King/Queen/All-Gender-Badass, and changing lives everywhere.
(Here is the full clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWoYy4Ah81s)
