A glam icon obviously for his Frank N Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a movie much darker and more interesting than I had first imagined and great fun to write about in S+A. (Interviewed Richard O'Brien who said the character was his own secret self.)
But I also love Tim Curry's turn as Stevie Streeter in the TV music biz satire Rock Follies (something else I managed to squeeze into S+A).
In particular these scenes where Streeter talks about his stage concept for the song "Street Signs" - a backdrop of urban decay, "filthy, violent, and honest" - and then rehearses the song with rubbish underfoot and a chorus of sex workers.
It's interesting for the way it shows the theatricality that inevitably lurks within any attempt to bring "reality" onto a stage.
But I wonder who it's actually meant to be a parody of?
Springsteen?
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band with their "Vambo Rules" graffiti aerosoled onto a backdrop of a fake brickwork like a tenement wall?
The Heavy Metal Kids?
Here Curry plays not a rocker but underground film maker Mik (complete with not-great American accent) for the Armchair Theatre play Vérité. This was aired on 23rd October, 1973. It was written by Howard Schuman, who wrote Rock Follies.
BBC Archive report on the making of the Rocky Horror Picture Show
