Curry candidly talked about partying in his early career while looking back in his 2025 memoir, ‘Vagabond’

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• Tim Curry, who died at age 80 on Aug. 25, was candid about countless experiences in his 2025 memoir, Vagabond
• Curry shared that he experimented with cocaine in the 1980s
• The actor expressed his gratitude that he never became reliant on the drug, though he noted incidents of problematic use

Tim Curry was very open about his past drug use in his memoir, Vagabond, which came out less than one year before the actor’s death.

In the book, Curry, who died at the age of 80 on Tuesday, Aug. 25, talked about trying cocaine in the early ‘80s after skyrocketing to fame for his role as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

“At one point, I was working on a film, a record and a play, often all in the same day. I was high on all of it and was also absolutely exhausted— but equally, I recognized that it was a fulfillment of everything I’d always wanted to do: all those art forms, all at once,” he wrote.

“I can’t claim that I was merely relying exclusively on a good night’s sleep to get through those days. It was New York in the ‘80s. Once I had settled there, I embraced the whole scene, which included my taking to cocaine like a duck to water,” he admitted. “The stuff in New York was much more dangerous than what was back home in England, because it was phenomenally pure. It came right from South America… Like smoking, cocaine was something that I was terribly good at.”

Curry continued to keep a frenzied workload, which brought him to “a time when I teetered very close to a potentially serious burnout.”

“The cocaine span of my life had slowed significantly after my rock ‘n’ roll career ended. There was a bit of a saving grace in that,” he noted, then explained how he was working on the original 1980 Broadway production of Amadeus alongside Ian McKellen as he came to a tipping point.

“Once I started Amadeus, I was still doing a line or two in the middle of the day with my friend Michael, who was my arranger and songwriting partner. This was some very pure, very potent blow, so much so that it hadn’t worn off entirely when it came time to do the show one night,” he recalled. “I made my entrance and began a scene. Ian could see that though I was delivering my lines, I was not in total command of myself.”

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“He communicated as much by raising an eyebrow and giggling, just kind of letting me know that he knew I wasn’t totally right, I guess,” Curry wrote. “It may not seem that disastrous, but it was a horrible experience and ensured that I would no longer combine recreation with work so recklessly. It wasn’t the raised eyebrow or the judgment. It was just not being able to have control onstage, especially when it came to a role for which I cared deeply.”

He later noted, “I was ever a vagabond drinker, but stopped using blow when it grew apparent that it wasn’t appropriate any longer. Blessedly, I wasn’t in its grasp — by which I mean I never craved it desperately. After quitting, I’d still indulge in the occasional line or a bump here and there, then would regret it instantly, because I didn’t actually enjoy the drug — no matter how smart I thought I was while on it.”

As for the drinking, that came to a head for Curry during Spamalot in 2006. While he did go to rehab, he said he never felt like he “qualified” as an alcoholic.

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.

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