His deep voice and almost two meters of height made Tony Todd an imposing figure perfect for terror. This was demonstrated as the titular villain of Candyman (Bernard Rose, 1992), and its three sequels (), and as a coroner and death expert, from 2000 to 2011. But this prolific actor not only created those icons of horror, but he never stopped appearing in films and television, in The rock (Michael Bay, 1996), Platoon (, 1986), Colors: war colors (Dennis Hopper, 1988), or the theatrical cult film The Man from Earth (Richard Schenkman, 2007), as well as playing the klingon Worf’s brother from the series Star Trek. Todd died this Friday at his home in Los Angeles at the age of 69, according to his representative, from causes still unknown.
The actor, born in Washington DC in 1954, studied at the Eugene O’Neill National Institute of Theater Actors (Connecticut) and began with the remake night of the living dead (Tom Savini, 1990) to become a constant presence in the horror genre in cinema. It was, however, his iconic role behind d, where he played the spirit of painter Daniel Robitaille who demanded justice with his scythe and his bees in a gentrified Chicago, that made him famous. The film, a social drama about racism and class differences bathed in violent slasherused it to create such a terrifying figure. So much so that no one doubted that this villain with a lot of soul, heir to Freddy Krueger, was going to return.
After two low-budget sequels, in 2021, Nia DaCosta and Jordan Peele updated their myth of interracial relationships and slavery in a fourth installment in which, of course, they used Todd again to make his victims repeat his name five times . In the same way, final destination It made him the man who best knew how the death that followed his protagonists worked. “You have to achieve sympathy with the audience in one way or another,”: “There has to be something attractive about the character that makes the audience bet on him, but, at the same time, be repulsed by the idea of liking him.” good. In all my characters I create a story for my tortured characters.”
His partner whom he tortured (and loved) in CandymanVirginia Madsen, said goodbye to him in an Instagram video: “My beloved, may you rest in peace in sweet sweet heaven. The great actor Tony Todd has left us and is now an angel, as he was in life. I love you”. The actress added in another message: “He was a kind soul with extensive knowledge of the arts. He was amused by his followers and was never embarrassed because they approached him. He was that atypical actor who was open to public attention. I’m going to miss him a lot, and I hope he stalks me on occasion, but I won’t summon him in the mirror! It was a gift that Jordan Peele made us live again as lovers. He even talked to us about using technology to create a prequel about how our love began. Imagine. I do it. My friend Tony, I do.”
It also appeared as, Wishmaster: the evil genius (Robert Kurtzman, 1997) y Hatchet (Adam Green, 2006), to which he returned as a zombie reverend in its sequel and its spin-off Victor Crowley. In his later years he mixed low-budget horror (he even fought Nazi zombies on the back of flying sharks in Sky Sharks) with numerous vocal works in animated films and video games, where he played Venom.
Television, and also theater, gave him a constant flow of work since the eighties, with a career of New police officers a going through all kinds of roles, often terrifying or in genre projects, in X-Files, haunted, 24, Chuck, Xena, Smallville y StarGate. His last rumored appearance will possibly be next Final Destination: Bloodlineswhere he returns to his role as a coroner, although he left a dozen recorded projects. Because, as a ghostly presence, terror never stopped giving him work, even after death.
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