The deep voice and great height of this prolific actor made him a recurring presence in film and television, from ‘The Rock’ to ‘Bird’ to the ‘Star Trek’ series.
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 (the last in 2021), and as a coroner and death expert in four films in the saga final destinationfrom 2000 to 2011. But this prolific actor not only created those icons of horror, but he never stopped appearing in film and television, in The rock (Michael Bay, 1996), Platoon (Oliver Stone, 1986), Colors: war colors (Dennis Hopper, 1988), Bird (Clint Eastwood, 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 the mirror in Candymanwhere he played the spirit of the painter Daniel Robitaille who demanded justice with his scythe and his bees in a gentrified Chicago, the one 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,” he said in an interview with Deadline in 2022: “There has to be something attractive in the character that makes the audience bet on him, but, at the same time, feel repulsion at the idea of liking him. In all my characters I create a story for my tortured characters.”
Trailer for ‘Candyman’
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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.”
He also appeared in other horror titles such as The crow (Alex Proyas, 1994), 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 such as Spider-Man 2where 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 The Flashgoing 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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He has spent years weathering fires in the EL PAÍS social media team and now he dedicates himself to talking about movies, series, comics and whatever comes his way from the Culture section. He doesn’t know how to ride a bicycle.
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