Tim Curry reveals Diana said Rocky Horror Show ‘completed my education’

Actor Tim Curry has said Diana, Princess of Wales once told him The Rocky Horror Picture Show “completed my education”.

The 79-year-old played transvestite alien scientist Dr Frank-N-Furter in the 1975 musical film, and said Diana revealed that she had watched the movie while meeting the cast of the play Love For Love, which he was also in.

Curry told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I was doing Love For Love… and Charles and Diana made an appearance.

“So we were all kind of lined up, and Diana was wearing a blue sequined dress, and she said, ‘is there anybody here from wardrobe? My dress is deconstructing, I’ve got a trail of sequins all the way from the royal box’.

“Then they were introduced to people individually, and Charles said, in that sort of mumble that he has, he said, ‘I think I’ve seen you on television’, and I said, ‘well, I hope I didn’t bore you, sir’.

“And Diana said, ‘you were in the Rocky Horror Show, weren’t you?’, and I said, ‘yes, ma’am, but I don’t imagine that you saw it’, and she said, ‘no, of course, I did, it very much completed my education’.”

The Cheshire-born actor said the film “gives audiences the permission to behave badly” or as he said his character would say “to swim the warm waters of the sins of the flesh”.

Curry suffered a major stroke in 2012 and says he is still unable to walk following the incident, which left him in a wheelchair.

He added: “The whole of my left side was paralysed, I can’t walk yet, and I find that very difficult and limiting.

“It’s horrible, I hate the idea of being an invalid, that’s for sure.”

Along with The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Curry also starred as Pennywise in It (1990), the concierge in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) and Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island (1996).

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York features a cameo appearance from US President Donald Trump, who Curry said had the “most explosive confidence that I’d ever encountered”, saying he was “entirely sure of himself” when working on the film.

He was also the first King Arthur in the Broadway and West End production of Monty Python’s Spamalot.

Curry released his memoir Vagabond on Tuesday.