Tim Curry (center, with Nell Campbell, Patricia Quinn and Richard O'Brien) writes at length in "Vagabond" about starring as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" as well as the original stage musical.
The cover of Tim Curry's new memoir, "Vagabond."
Thirteen years after a serious stroke, Tim Curry is telling his life story and dishing on his stage and screen roles in his book "Vagabond: A Memoir."
Tim Curry starred opposite Kermit the Frog in "Muppet Treasure Island," one of Curry's favorite movies in his long career.

Tim Curry has played kings and clowns, devils and pirates, a chatty butler and a high-heeled mad scientist from the planet Transsexual. Believe it or not, his life spent off the screen and the stage has been just as interesting.

The British actor, well known for gloriously owning scenes in movies as diverse as “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and “Muppet Treasure Island,” chronicles his fabulous career in new memoir ,“Vagabond” (available now from Grand Central Publishing). Curry goes back to his early days moving around England frequently as the son of a navy chaplain, revisits his assorted roles and opens up about the 2012 stroke he suffered that left him partially paralyzed. Plus Curry shares a ton of tales, from a chance meeting with Pablo Picasso in Cannes to the high blood pressure situation that was "Clue."

“Vagabond” isn’t, as Curry puts it, a “juicy Hollywood tell-all,” and he refuses to dish out “lurid details of my love affairs.” What he does, however, is take readers on a journey full of colorful characters and recognizable names with humorous, often cheeky verve.

Here are some of the most fascinating revelations:

Tim Curry found 'real confidence' bringing Frank-N-Furter to life

Curry has recently been a main attraction for events around the 50th anniversary of “Rocky Horror.” That’s of course covered in “Vagabond,” but Curry – a “West Side Story” fanboy from a young age – goes back to the original 1973 musical “The Rocky Horror Show” to detail how he created the mercurial Dr. Frank-N-Furter.

Curry writes he reused a Victorian corset he wore playing a female character in a production of “The Maids” as part of his Frank costume, went shopping for “the most comfortable” black heels he could find – that were then turned into platforms – and based Frank’s voice on an older woman he overheard on a bus “who was doing her very best to sound like the Queen.” Stepping into the fan-favorite character’s shoes forced Curry “to carry a persona of real confidence.”

As a New Yorker, Tim Curry partied hard with Carly Simon, Andy Warhol

When living in New York in the late ‘70s and during his short-lived stint trying to be a rock star, Curry writes that he took to cocaine “like a duck to water." When working on his music, Curry befriended the likes of Carole King and Cher, and tells of one wild night out at Studio 54 with Carly Simon and James Taylor. Curry enjoyed “bowls of coke” while Truman Capote was working the DJ booth and even Andy Warhol joined the party: “He had a bit of a thing for me, so that was all right.”

Although he had “snorted most of Peru” by the time he left the Big Apple, Curry confesses he never actually enjoyed doing coke and “was able to cut the habit relatively easily.”

'Rocky Horror' mainstay enjoyed his royal run-ins

Curry writes that his mother was “unimpressed (at best) and even embarrassed” by his success, but did enjoy his job when she got to meet royalty. While playing the Pirate King during the early '80s in a West End production of “The Pirates of Penzance,” Curry was supposed to cut an 80th birthday cake onstage for the Queen Mother but not given a proper knife – she suggested they try his “trusty sword.”

Soon after, Curry met then-Prince Charles and Princess Diana doing the play “Love for Love.” The “stately and sweet" Diana recognized him from seeing “The Rocky Horror Show” – “It quite completed my education!” she told him – while Charles awkwardly mentioned seeing him on TV. “I can’t get used to calling him King Charles,” Curry writes. “I find it terribly strange that he’s on the currency.”

Tim Curry went on a highway to hell with Tom Cruise

“Wickedness, it seems, comes naturally to me,” Curry writes about his tendency toward on-screen villains, from Pennywise in the TV movie "It" to the Lord of Darkness in Ridley Scott’s 1985 fantasy movie “Legend.” Curry describes becoming Darkness as “a horrifically claustrophobic glimpse of hell” that involved “pounds of prosthetics” applied to his body and hooves that added more than two feet of height.

Grace Jones, who was filming “A View to a Kill” nearby, would come by and visit when he was getting into his makeup. Curry didn’t get as close to "Legend" costar Tom Cruise. Curry writes that he “was just never blown away by his talent” – he jokes all the prosthetics might have dulled his senses – but ultimately did find Cruise “to be a very thoughtful, considerate colleague.”

Curry offers thoughts on costars from Donald Trump to the Muppets

Curry weighs in on many of his various costars over the years in “Vagabond.” He recalls the parade of women coming in and out of Sylvester Stallone’s dressing room on the set of “Oscar” – while it should have been none of his business, “the noises and general traffic ended up making it everybody’s business.” And Curry tells of the time making “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” when Donald Trump asked him where director Chris Columbus was. The future president wanted to introduce Columbus to girlfriend Marla Maples because “Marla is a very talented actress.” (“I have no doubt she was good at faking it,” Curry quips now.)

But Curry was in heaven working alongside Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and the gang for “Muppet Treasure Island.” “They are actors, each filled with distinct characteristics and foibles and all of our very human traits,” he writes. Curry’s fave Muppet? Gonzo. “Always the victim, and never deserved it.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Tim Curry spills on costars from Tom Cruise to Trump in witty memoir

Reporting by Brian Truitt, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect