Tim Curry, the actor who first brought Pennywise the Dancing Clown to the screen, died on Tuesday, August 25, 2026, at his home in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles. He was 80. His manager, Marcia Hurwitz, confirmed the death to Variety, and a cause was not given.
Curry’s career ranged widely, from Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show in 1975 through decades of film, stage, and voice roles. For horror fans, one role stands out: Pennywise in the 1990 television miniseries of Stephen King’s It.
His Pennywise, and the one that followed
Curry’s Pennywise leaned on contrast. Rather than an obvious monster, he played a jovial children’s-party clown, all greasepaint grin and a silver, Victorian-style costume, whose friendliness turned menacing the moment the performance called for it. It became one of horror’s more widely recognized clown roles, and it stood as the definitive screen version of the character for more than two decades.
When It was adapted again as a two-part film in 2017 and 2019, Bill Skarsgard took over the role with a very different, more overtly monstrous take. Both interpretations remain in circulation, and Curry’s version is the one many viewers of a certain age still picture first.
A clown-heavy Halloween
Curry’s death arrives in a Halloween season where clowns are unusually prominent across horror and the attractions industry. HAN has tracked the trend all year, from clowns broadly taking over Halloween 2026 to Universal placing Killer Klowns and Art the Clown on a single street in Downtown Clowntown at Halloween Horror Nights 35, Art the Clown taking over the HHN Hollywood Terror Tram, and the return of Frendo in Clown in a Cornfield 2.
The It property is part of that wave. HBO’s prequel series Welcome to Derry is continuing the story, and Pennywise is set to appear on Cosm’s giant domes in a shared-reality horror experience. Curry originated the screen version of the character that all of it traces back to.
Reporting on Tim Curry’s death via Variety, CBS News, and NBC News. Photo: Alan Light / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).
