R.I.P. Tony Todd, horror icon and Candyman star

Tony Todd has died. A veteran actor with a deep, resonant voice that matched his towering frame, Todd racked up nearly 250 credits across a 40-year film and television career. But while he played superheroes, supervillains, Klingons, soldiers, jazz men, preachers, cops, killers, doctors, monsters, mobsters, generals, aliens, Transformers, and more, Todd will inevitably be remembered best for one role: His title turn in 1992 horror hit Candyman. (Referred to, in mock-hush tones, as “the motion picture” when Todd discussed his legendary career in interviews.) It was the film that catapulted Todd into the blood-streaked limelight, putting him on first-name basis with fellow horror icons like Kane Hodder and Robert Englund; it’s the film that most widely showcased his twin gifts for charisma and menace. It was also just a portion of a career that stretched from the jungles of the Philippines for Oliver Stone, to the far reaches of space for his many turns in the Star Trek franchise, and to a hundred other points in between. Per Deadline, Todd’s death on Wednesday was confirmed by his representatives this evening. He was 69.

Born in Washington D.C., Todd pursued acting from an early age, achieving a Masters degree in his craft and working as an acting teacher in the early days of his career. A stint in New York theater caught the eye of casting directors working for Oliver Stone, and Todd was offered his first film role in the mid-’80s: A small part in Platoon, which saw Todd travel across the planet to film in the Philippines with a cast of soon-to-be-massive stars. A starring role in Tom Savini’s Night Of The Living Dead remake a few years later elevated his profile further, and he became a mainstay doing single-episode stints on TV—including the rare distinction of a guest star turn on Stephen Bochco’s deeply bizarre Cop Rock. (“Failed to get the numbers,” Todd reminisced with us in a 2010 interview about his career. “Failed to get the ratings. But boy, was it fun!”) Notably, this period saw Todd pick up the first of what would eventually be several appearances in Star Trek; after auditioning again, and again for the producers of Star Trek: The Next Generation, he eventually landed the role of Kurn, the Klingon brother of Michael Dorn’s Worf. Down the line, Todd would go on to appear in different roles in three of the Trek series, including in Deep Space Nine‘s “The Visitor,” generally held up as one of the franchise’s finest hours—not least of which because of Todd’s performance as an aging, grief-afflicted Jake Sisko.

Back in 1992, though, we come to the dividing line of Todd’s career; it’s all pre-Candyman, or post-Candyman. Todd had to fight like hell to get the part, despite initially being unsure about what the film even was. (“I get a call from my agent saying ‘This director wants to see you, wants to just meet you about this movie called Candyman.’ I thought he was fucking joking. I mean, what is that? A Sammy Davis thing? What is that?”) But director Bernard Rose was convinced that Todd was the man to play murdered vengeance-seeker Daniel Robitaille, a role that required an actor as seductive as he was terrifying, a figure of sympathy as much as outright horror. (Todd, acknowledging the influences: “I was heavy into the whole Dracula, Phantom Of The Opera thing.”) The resulting film was only a modest hit at the box office, but it penetrated deep into the American psyche, driven on by its unique take on urban legends, the rarity of a Black icon in the horror field, and Todd’s own on-screen power. (Also, the bees.)

From then on, Todd was “Candyman‘s Tony Todd,” making the rounds of the horror convention circuit, appearing in dozens of small-budget horror films, and returning to the franchise three more times. (Most recently with Nia DaCosta’s update of the franchise in 2021.) But he also refused to allow himself to be reduced to a caricature, continuing to offer up performances in need of his gravitas, warmth, and professionalism in everything from micro-budgeted horror movies to giant Michael Bay blockbusters. (It’s not surprising Todd became a prolific voice actor in his later years; only that a man with a voice like that took so long to get into the field.) He picked up memorable parts on shows like The X-Files, had a regular stint on 24, and, in what was probably his most famous recurring role outside Candyman, appeared in most of the Final Destination movies as the only guy who usually didn’t get knocked off by Death’s various Rube Goldberg methods of murder.

As an actor with his stake planted firmly in the world of horror, we’d never argue that Tony Todd wasn’t in a lot of movies of the B-grade or lower, low-budget offerings that probably spent more on, well, casting Tony Todd than they did on visuals or scripts. But we would argue that he rarely, if ever, gave a B-movie performance. Even in something like Tubi Original Hellblazers—one of his final screen credits—you can see a man taking his craft seriously, creating characters and imbuing them with dignity and power. You never got anything less, when you brought in Tony Todd.