The awful news of Tony Todd’s passing has hit the horror community hard today, and Grimmfest chief programmer Steve Balsaw has a few words celebrating the man –
“Genuinely a genre icon. Prolific, perpetually in demand, with a voice as distinctive and unmistakeable as Karloff, Price, Lee, or Pleasence, and presence to burn. He’s always going to be known for CANDYMAN, and deservedly so, but he was a busy, blue chip character actor on TV and in film for many years, ever-reliable, always good, always memorable, as well as being a fine, classically-trained stage actor.
Horror embraced him as one of its own, and he became a familiar, always welcome face, appearing in a multitude of movies, good, bad, and indifferent, but he was never less than great in any of them; always delivering the goods, bringing his A Game. If the material was good, he would sharpen it, make it better, find unexpected quirks and nuances in the role; if the material was… less than good… he would make the very best of it; it would become good for the time he was on screen.
This is a huge loss to the horror genre, to cinema and TV and theatre. And he was only 69 years old, which is way, way too soon.
A side of me wishes that we could all just go and stand in front of the bathroom mirror and say his name five times, and conjure him back for a few more roles. But, alas, I fear it would not work.
R.I.P., Tony Todd. And thank you.”