Tony Todd was born on 4 December 1954. Sadly, he died last year on 6 November of stomach cancer.
Todd played the title role in all the Candyman films. I’ve only seen the first of the films. It was based on a Clive Barker short story. And it works well. The critics hated the second and third films. So, you know, probably worth watching. Critics loved the last of them. But critics are so keen to praise Jordan Peele that this may mean nothing. (Well, it means nothing anyway. Critics are idiots!)
Of course, I love Tony Todd because he starred in Tom Savini‘s exceptional Night of the Living Dead remake. I think Duane Jones is great in the original. But Todd was a better actor. And in the film, he plays the part with an intensity that seems more real.
Despite dying relatively young, Todd had an amazing career. In fact, he had the kind of career that I think the vast majority of film actors would prefer. He has 260 credits on IMDb. He worked mostly in film. But he also did a fair amount of TV. This even includes 14 epsiodes of the soup opera The Young and the Restless — despite not getting fed.
A lot of actors I talk about here have been in notable psychotronic films. They aren’t what you would call psychotronic actors. I think I can say that Todd is a psychotronic actor. It would be annoying for me to list all these films. But a few notable ones include The Crow (1992), Death House (2017), and, of course, four of the Final Destination films where he played mortician William Bludworth.
So, let’s celebrate Tony Todd’s birthday by watching Candyman. (If you’d rather watch Night of the Living Dead, just click on Tom Savini’s name above and you’ll find it for free.) He doesn’t get a lot to do, but he is what makes the film work. It’s fun — and scary!
Image cropped from Tony Todd by Super Festivals under CC BY 2.0.