Timothy James Curry is an English actor, singer and composer, and rock musician. His list of roles is both extensive and varied, in both TV and movies, live-action and voice-acting for animated features.

Curry is best known for his portrayal as Dr. Frank N Furter, in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He currently resides in Los Angeles, although he has spent a considerable amount of time in Chicago, New York City, and most recently London, in his role as King Arthur in the Broadway hit Monty Python's Spamalot.

Curry's father, James, was a Methodist Royal Navy chaplain, and his mother, Patricia, was a school secretary. Curry was born and raised in Warrington and attended Lymm High School until his father's death in 1958, when Curry relocated to South London.

He attended Kingswood School, Bath, and although he didn't enjoy the religious aspect of the Methodist school, he did enjoy the vast number of hymns available. There, he developed into a talented boy soprano. Deciding to concentrate on acting, Curry graduated from Birmingham University with a combined degree in English and drama.

Curry's first full-time role was as part of the original London cast of the musical Hair in 1968, where he first met Richard O'Brien who went on to write Curry's next full-time and perhaps still most famous role, that of Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Show.

Originally, Curry rehearsed the character with a German accent and peroxide blond hair, but the character evolved into the sly, very upper-class English mad scientist and transvestite that carried over to the movie version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and made Curry both a star and a cult figure. He continued to play the character in London, Los Angeles, and New York until 1975.

For many years, Curry was reluctant to talk about Rocky Horror, feeling that it was a trend that had gone too far and had distracted attention away from his later roles.

A VH1 Pop-Up Video Halloween special even quoted Curry as saying he grew so unnerved by all the fan attention after this role that he became "chubby and plain" in order to escape it. However, in recent years he has been much more open about discussing the show and now recognizes it as a "rite of passage" for many young people.