cbr18bingo
Card – Clown (Because, c’mon, Pennywise!)
There are two Muppet movies that will always make me squee, because of their human costars. The first is Christmas Carol with Michael Caine, and the second is Treasure Island with Tim Curry. (An astute critic remarked that the first one works because Caine never treats his costars as anything other than human, while the second succeeds because Curry is a Muppet). If there is a comic villain needed, Curry is your man. What I had no idea of was his incredible life as a performer.
This autobiography is unusual in that it focuses solely on his career, not his personal life, and I think is all the stronger for it. Family consisted of his widowed mother and his older sister, and early on, Mum managed to get him in a boarding school, Kingswood, in Bath. He quickly fell into the drama and vocal departments, and from there ended up in 1968 as a member of the London Hair cast. Clearly not a shy lad, he was then cast in an experimental musical called The Rocky Horror Show. Very much low budget, so he came up with makeup and costume on his own. You may have heard of it.
From there on, he pretty much tried his hand at everything, winning awards left and right. Movies, stage, and notably voice-over work – on numerous video games and animated features (Nigel from The Wild Thornberries, anyone)? He can tell stories galore and does. In later years, a stroke slowed him down a bit, but did not put him out of contention. He insisted on reading this book himself for the audio version.
And did you know that he was in the first US production of Amadeus? He was Mozart, naturally, and Salieri was none other than Sir Ian McKellen (they are the same age). There is a photo in the book of the pair that is just delightful. A very fun read.
