Tony Todd, an actor who performed the killer in Candyman and its 2021 sequel and appeared within the Ultimate Vacation spot franchise and Platoon amongst greater than 240 movie and TV credit spanning 40 years, died November 6 at his dwelling in Los Angeles. He was 69.
His reps confirmed the information to Deadline however didn’t present a reason behind dying.
Tony Todd in ‘Platoon’
Tony Todd by way of Fb
Born on December 4, 1954, in Washington, D.C., Todd pursued performing on the Eugene O’Neill Nationwide Actors Theatre Institute and Trinity Rep Conservatory, the place he honed his abilities and developed his commanding model. Amongst his first display roles was taking part in the heroin-addicted Sergeant Warren in Oliver Stone’s Finest Image Oscar-winning Vietnam Warfare basic Platoon.
Todd went on to visitor on such well-liked Eighties and ’90s sequence as 21 Bounce Road, Night time Courtroom, MacGyver, Matlock, Jake and the Fatman, Legislation & Order, The X-Recordsdata, NYPD Blue, Beverly Hills 90210, Xena: Warrior Princesss and Homicide, She Wrote and Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology, Deep Area 9 and Voyager. He additionally recurred as pesky TV information reporter Matt Rhodes on Murder: Life on the Road and as Gus Rogan in additional than a dozen 2013 episodes of The Younger and the Stressed.
Tony Todd, left, and Michael Dorn in ‘Star Trek: Deep Area 9’
, 1993-99. ph: Robbie RobinsParamount Tv/Everett Assortment
All of the whereas, Todd continued to behave for the massive display. He appeared in Eighties dramas Lean on Me, Colours and Charlie Parker biopic Chook, starring Forest Whitaker. However his best-known movie roles got here throughout the next decade.
The 6-foot-5 Todd starred within the 1990 remake Night time of the Residing Useless as Ben, the function performed by Duane Jones in George A. Romero’s iconic 1968 authentic. His subsequent large function probably is his most well-known — taking part in the legendary title creep with a hook for a hand in Candyman (1992) — a personality he reprised within the 2021 sequel of the identical title.
Tony Todd, left, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in 2021’s ‘Candyman’
Common Photos/Everett Assortment
Candyman within the 1992 movie was the ghost of Daniel Robitaille, whose mother and father had been enslaved within the 1800s and have become an achieved painter. However ultimately he fell for a white girl whose enraged father despatched a lynch mob to kill him. Robitaille was burned on a spot the place a public housing mission later is constructed and the place a sequence of unexplained murders happens.
The Candyman legend lived on within the 2021 sequel directed by Nia DaCosta. It was amongst quite a lot of horror roles for Todd that will proceed all through his 40-year profession, together with taking part in funeral dwelling proprietor William Bludworth in Ultimate Vacation spot and a number of sequels. He additionally performed Grange, the right-hand man of High Greenback (Michael Wincott) in 1994’s The Crow starring Brandon Lee.
“You gotta have viewers sympathy for the character ultimately or one other,” Todd advised Deadline in a 2022 interview. “There’s gotta be one thing enticing in regards to the character that makes folks wish to root for them however on the similar time really feel repulsed by the concept. And for me personally, for each movie that I do, I create a backstory for all my tortured folks and my heroes alike.”
Todd continued to work steadily in movie, TV and video video games all through the twenty first century, together with a recurring gig because the CIA director on NBC’s Chuck, Freeform’s Useless of Summer season and MTV/VH1’s Scream. His silver-screen roles primarily had been in B-movies.
He additionally was a sought-after voice actor, lending his wealthy and resonant pipes to dozens of roles starting from Star Trek and Name of Obligation video games to TV’s Transformers Prime and Be Cool, Scooby-Doo and such movies as Transformers: Rise of the Fallen.
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Tony Todd in 2017
Michael Tullberg/Getty Pictures
Possessed of a heat snort and beneficiant spirit that belied his hulking look, Todd continued to work into this yr together with Stream and a lead function in The Bunker — considered one of greater than a dozen up upcoming credit, per IMDb. He appeared in final yr’s Stream, Realm of Shadows and Werewolf Sport and within the 2022 SXSW-premiering Bitch Ass.
Todd additionally a few half-dozen small movies through the 2000s and appeared as himself in dozens of largely horror-themed documentaries and docuseries.
Info on survivors was incomplete.
