The cause of death for Tim Curry has been determined.
According to Los Angeles County Department of Public Health records obtained by Us on Wednesday, September 2, Curry’s immediate cause of death was coronary artery disease. The document also listed a history of stroke and kidney cancer as other significant conditions that contributed to his death, but did not result in the underlying cause of the actor’s death.
Curry was cremated on Monday, August 31, and his remains were sent to the United Kingdom. No autopsy was performed. (People was first to report the cause of death.)
News broke on August 26 that Curry died at age 80. The Los Angeles Police Department’s North Hollywood Division told Us at the time that officers responded to a call for a rescue ambulance to Curry’s home around 11:23 p.m. on Tuesday, August 25. (Us reached out to Curry’s rep for comment.)
More than one decade prior to his death, Curry suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. Nearly three years later, the Home Alone 2: Lost in New York actor opened up about his health while receiving a lifetime achievement award from the Actors Fund.
“I’m doing well,” he told Los Angeles magazine at the time, noting that his sense of humor was “absolutely vital” to his recovery. “It’s not tough to maintain. It is just part of my DNA.”
While reflecting on his role as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Curry said he looked back at the 1975 film “with a sort of bemused tolerance” after it launched his career in the industry. “It’s neither a blessing nor a curse,” he said. “I was lucky to get it.”
Curry continued to make appearances at fan events and shifted to focus on voice acting, serving as the narrator for The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do the Time Warp Again in 2016. Laverne Cox, meanwhile, took over his original role.
At the time, Curry told People that he was happy to be “coming back to the project,” which he holds “very dear.” He added, “It’s very exciting. It will be very interesting because it’s very close to me.”
Nearly a decade later, in 2025, he released his memoir, Vagabond. That same year, he participated in the documentary Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror, in which he spoke about the Rocky Horror stage production.
“It was a really good time. It was very creative and I remember reaching a crisis fairly early on because I would snap out an order to somebody and they wouldn’t quite jump to it,” Curry said in the doc. “And I stopped and sort of had a rather small tantrum and said, ‘Look I can’t be powerful if you don’t accept the power and at least cringe a little.’ So that took care of that pretty quickly.”
