Tony Todd dead at 69: Candyman star also acted in Final Destination

Tony Todd, who played the titular serial killer in the Candyman horror franchise, died  in Los Angeles on Wednesday night aged 69.

He died of natural causes at home in Marina Del Rey, according to his representative Jeffrey Goldberg, who told TMZ he did not have a specific cause of death.

Over the course in four decades in show business, Todd lent his talents to multiple tentpoles, including the Transformers and Final Destination film series.

He also played the Starship Enterprise's Commander Kurn on multiple Star Trek shows, including The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. 

Todd also enjoyed a varied stage career, including a run in the Broadway production of the musical Aida with songs by Tim Rice and Elton John.

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Born in Washington, DC in 1954, Todd was raised in Connecticut by an aunt who took him in when he was just three years old.

'My mother was going through some issues. So the family intervened,' Todd explained cryptically to the Guardian decades later.

'And, you know, my mother has no memory of it to this day, and I respect her as the woman who birthed me. But, you know, I’m also glad that my aunt intervened and put me on the right path.'

Todd's aunt nurtured his interest in acting and put him in classes during the summers, before he ultimately studied drama at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center.

One of his early breaks in the movies was the acclaimed Oliver Stone war drama Platoon, released in 1986 as the first part of the director's Vietnam trilogy. 

Todd had a small part amid a glittering cast that included Charlie Sheen, Willem Defoe, Forest Whitaker and the young Johnny Depp.

Reflecting on why Stone cast him, Todd said: 'The last thing he wanted was anybody that looked like an actor. He wanted real faces. So it helped that I came from the theatre and I came from poverty.'

Four years later, Todd became a star in his own right by playing the lead character Ben in the 1990 remake of Night Of The Living Dead alongside Patricia Tillman.

'To this day, people think of that role when they see me,' Todd told SciFi.radio nearly three decades later. 'That’s the beautiful thing about horror. Horror fans are precious. They hold onto the memories! And I keep making new sh*t! And I think one day, people are going to realize the depth of the genre.'

He achieved icon status in the horror world in 1992, when moviegoers saw him the title villainous role in the supernatural thriller Candyman.

Todd played the homicidal ghost of a 19th century American slave who conducted an affair with a white woman and was murdered as a result.

When anyone says: 'Candyman' five times in a mirror, the ghost emerges and savages whoever summoned him with a hook that has replaced one of his hands. 

Virginia Madsen led the cast as the movie's heroine Helen Lyle, a Chicago graduate student who uncovers the truth behind the Candyman legend. 

Apart from being a fearsome presence on the screen, Todd also emerged as a sex symbol of sorts via the smash hit horror feature.

After the runaway success of the first film, Todd starred in two sequels, Candyman: Farewell To The Flesh in 1995 and Candyman: Day Of The Dead in 1999. 

When the Candyman franchise was revived for a 2021 movie co-written by Jordan Peele, Todd returned once again to his most beloved role.

Now a mainstay of the horror genre, Todd acted in such films as the original Final Destination in 2000, plus Final Destination 2 in 2003 and Final Destination 5 in 2011.

He also acted frequently on TV, with a recurring role as Kurn on Star Trek: The Next Generation, a character he reprised once on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Todd played two other Star Trek characters, one of which meant that he also appeared on a third show in the franchise - Star Trek: Voyager.

In the Michael Bay film Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, he provided the voiceover for the antagonist robot, The Fallen. 

Todd's baritone voice also lent itself to extensive work in video games, including Call of Duty: Black Ops II and a number of Star Trek adaptations. 

However his first love remained the stage, and he acted in such plays as King Hedley II by August Wilson and such musicals as Elton John's Aida.

'In an ideal world, I'd just do theatre,' Todd confessed once to Whoosh!. 'Unfortunately it's hard to make a living doing full theatre. I try to do a play a year.' 

Todd continued working vigorously to the end of his life, and his IMDb lists multiple projects still to be released, including a rumored reprise of his role as funeral director William Bludworth in the upcoming movie Final Destination: Bloodlines.

His Candyman co-star Virginia Madsen reacted to the news of his death by posting an emotional Instagram video confessing: 'I don't know what to say right now.' 

In her caption, she wrote: 'My beloved. May you rest in power sweet to the sweet in heaven. The great actor Tony Todd has left us and now is an angel. As he was in life. More later but I can’t right now. I love you. #candyman'.