Tim Curry, the British-born actor whose gift for garish eccentricity lit up stage and screen, most notably as the outlandish, cross-dressing mad scientist in the midnight cult film "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," died on Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 80.

The death was confirmed by Marcia Hurwitz, his longtime agent and manager. In 2012, Mr. Curry suffered a serious stroke, from which, he said last year, "I've been recovering for quite a long time."

With a mischief-maker's good looks, a casual athletic grace and a supple and resonant voice, Mr. Curry was a favorite in roles calling for expressive villainy or general cartoonishness. In the first screen version of "Annie" (1982), he brought more than a dollop of slime to the part of Rooster Hannigan. In "Clue" (1985), he played Wadsworth, a logorrheic butler. In "Spamalot," the stage musical based on the Monty Python troupe's retelling of the King Arthur legend, which opened on Broadway in 2005, he played Arthur himself and was nominated for a Tony Award.

But no other role marked Mr. Curry's career as emphatically as that of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the "sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania," as he proclaimed himself in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." The 1975 screen adaptation was based on the hit London stage musical, in which Mr. Curry originated the part in 1973. The movie became a cult hit shown at midnight around the world; it celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2025. Mr. Curry's performance opened many casting doors, and his Frank-N-Furter was the first of many threatening bad guys he played, including Darkness in Ridley Scott's "Legend," Pennywise in "It," and Cardinal Richelieu in "The Three Musketeers."