Tony Todd Death: The Actor On His Career & Candyman’s Legacy

Film legend Tony Todd, star of the Philip Glass-scored horror classic Candyman, died this week aged 69. In this interview from the Telegraph archives, originally published in October 2021, the actor reflected on the legacy of his hook-handed villain and how he wanted to be remembered.

Few horror antagonists can chill warm air with just a mention of their name, but actor Tony Todd’s Candyman is among them. The mythical killer, who appears covered in bees and clutching a rusty hook should you dare utter his name five times into a mirror, made a whole generation of horror fans scared of their bathroom cabinets, embedding himself deep into the public psyche.

Todd’s honeyed vocals are an exquisite combination of seduction and terror, making the 1992 horror film’s heroine Helen (Virginia Madsen) unsure whether to be tempted or mortified by the Candyman’s request to “be my victim”. “We weren’t interested in a masked man stalking a hapless woman through the woods. That’s no slight to the movies that do that, but with Candyman we wanted to elevate horror by basing our film in this gothic romanticism,” the 66-year-old actor recalls of an iconic movie revisited by thousands every Hallowe’en.

With his velvety yet villainous baritone still intact, Todd continues: “In preparation [for Candyman], me and Virginia [Madsen] took ballroom dancing lessons, fenced, and even went horseback riding together. It was so our chemistry would be effortless. The film was supposed to be like Dracula or the Phantom of the Opera. It’s about a great unrequited love. Candyman takes two people who are madly in love, and meant for each other, and rips them apart. If you do that, you’ll reap a very special kind of madness.”

The horror, which is loosely based on Clive Barker’s short gothic fable The Forbidden, sees Todd play Daniel Robitaille, a black painter murdered in the slave era after daring to fall in love with and impregnate the daughter of a wealthy white man. The angry locals hack off his arm and cover Robitaille in honey, resulting in hordes of bees stinging him to death. Todd credits a “great lawyer” for inserting a clause in his contract that he got $1000 for every bee sting he endured, taking him up $27,000 by the end of shooting.

In the years that follow, Robitaille transitions into “the vengeful spirit of the Candyman”, with the modern-day black occupants of Chicago’s notorious Cabrini Green housing projects (situated on the land where Robitaille was once killed) convinced he is responsible for a series of brutal murders. This prompts academic Helen, whose lips tellingly quiver whenever she researches Robitaille’s story, to try to decipher the reality from the urban legend.

Yet Todd reveals that Hollywood executives were guilty of the same mentality as the film’s lynch mob, cutting back on the erotic undertones due to fears audiences wouldn’t be prepared for an interracial relationship. “We couldn’t get me and Virginia’s love scenes past the studio,” he explains of this twisted irony.

“There were eight minutes cut, which included scenes where I recited romantic poetry to Helen and you got a real sense of our love for one another. The studio got nervous and thought a black and white eroticism would [negatively] impact the box office. It was like they couldn’t accept black and white people were f******!”

The changes didn’t stop Candyman from becoming a cult classic, with the internet filled with theories on what the story might signify. Some believe it’s a film about the horrors of gentrification, others say it’s a metaphor for racism, with the Candyman forcing Helen to trade places and experience the constant loss associated with being black in America. These are themes beefed up by 2021’s divisive reboot, with Candyman brought into the 21st century by producer Jordan Peele (Get Out) and director Nia DaCosta. Arguably, the 2021 film isn’t as powerful as the 1992 original because it forgets to root its narrative in a tragic love story.

Todd hopes the character isn’t perceived by the masses as a traditional horror villain. In 1995′s criminally underrated New Orleans-set sequel Candyman: Farewell to The Flesh, Todd’s character proclaims: “Be my witness. See how I became a reflection of their hatred!” It’s an important line that confirms the Candyman isn’t just a sadistic bogeyman, but rather a mirror of white brutality.

“That is a good analogy,” Todd agrees. “The Candyman is a living, breathing mirror. That’s why mirrors are so prominent in the story. You shouldn’t see a black bogeyman … there’s no such f****** thing! What you should see is the rage, the stigma, and the hatred people have for something that should have been welcomed. The character mirrors all of that.”

Todd’s Candyman character unleashes lung-deep screams that seem to echo through time, suggesting he was channelling something much deeper than just the dialogue written on the page. “When I grew up, I heard the stories from the [US] South of the trees where black men were hung, or the slaves who worked 16-hour days on the plantation just for a single piece of meat. As a little kid, I remember seeing a separate drinking fountain for blacks and wondering why things were like this. To play a character like Daniel, you must understand the roots of where his pain comes from, and I think I could do that.”

To truly comprehend Todd’s performance, where lines like “What’s blood if not for shedding?” are delivered with Shakespearean poise, you have to dig deep into the actor’s roots. Raised by his beloved Aunt Clara in Hartford, Connecticut, Todd was a child of the civil rights movement. Although he was raised poor, he was taught to think big, with the movies making him believe anything was possible. By the time he was gifted a copy of Hamlet by his school teacher Mrs Reynolds, Todd knew acting was his calling.

“My aunt gave me unconditional love and a hot plate every night,” he says fondly. “She made me feel so whole, which meant it took me a long time to figure out we were even poor! We would watch the 8pm TV movie together, taking in everything from Bogart to Brando, and we shared that experience every night. It’s what gave me my love of cinema and storytelling.”

From there, Todd talked his way into higher education, studying theatre at the coveted Eugene O’Neill Theatre Centre, before hustling his way across stage roles in cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. A trained thespian, Todd would later star in critically acclaimed one-man plays of stories such as August Wilson’s How I Learned What I Learned and Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun, while also touring the world as a member of the politically fuelled theatre group, The Modern Times.

He believes training is becoming a lost skill among today’s actors. “Because of Covid, it’s all gone online. But you can’t learn how to act through Zoom classes. You have to be sharing breath, looking deep into someone’s eyes. Maybe actors aren’t as interested in learning the craft any more. It’s all about instant success nowadays.”

Todd’s theatrical training created a versatility, where shifting between the hero and the anti-hero subsequently became effortless. “Live theatre is my favourite mode of acting,” he adds. “There, the passion and connection to the audience is totally fearless. It’s just electrifying. I only ask people refer to me as a character actor and not a horror actor.”

It’s easy to see where this confusion might arise – one of Todd’s big breaks in cinema was the lead role of Ben in Tom Savini’s misunderstood 1990 Night of the Living Dead remake. Todd’s Ben is likely to hug you and then hand you a shotgun, injecting a sensitivity into the character that didn’t exist in George Romero’s original zombie classic. Like all of Todd’s great characters, it’s obvious a vivid backstory was created in the actor’s brain.

“Ben isn’t a killer, he’s an insurance agent who just happens to drive down the wrong road on the wrong day,” he explains. “He isn’t a brute, but someone who carefully considers the options. You always give your characters a struggle and Ben’s was rooted in socialism. Every man dreams differently. As an actor, I try to look beyond what’s on the paper and embody the dreams behind the words.”

The zombie remake led to Candyman, and a career in Hollywood in which Todd admits he was often typecast, offered horror character after horror character and popping up in everything from Hatchet to the Final Destination series. But Todd’s filmography deserves to be defined well beyond horror, with the actor consistently lighting up the screen, even if his roles were sometimes limited.

In 1995′s limited TV series Black Fox, Todd acts opposite Superman actor Christopher Reeves, playing a radical black cowboy in the Wild West. Crucially, he proved he could play the hero. His performance in 2007′s The Man from Earth, a film about a man who tries to convince his friends he’s the second coming of Christ, also deserves more attention. Todd plays an academic who believes in the unbelievable, hinting at the idea that intellectuals will only achieve greatness by taking a leap into the fantastical.

Todd also depicted memorable villains in popular blockbusters such as The Rock and The Crow, where Todd acted alongside the late Sean Connery and Brandon Lee, the son of Bruce Lee, who died on set after a gun fired a blank into his torso. In these two films, Todd seems to get a carnal pleasure out of killing, ensuring his shadow lurks long after his scenes are over. Of co-star Connery, who played a former SAS captain in Michael Bay’s The Rock, Todd laughs: “I wasn’t a Scotch drinker, but when I tried his private supply, well, I became converted.”

Understandably, his memories of The Crow are darker. But he says being given the opportunity to act alongside Lee on the film, which depicts a murdered man brought back to life by a Crow (whom Todd’s Grange character shoots) to exact revenge on a gang of criminals, left a lasting impression. “With Brandon I watched a man doing what he loved in a star-making role, finally escaping the shadow of his father. I saw the very thing Brandon loved kill him due to an unfortunate set of circumstances. That tragedy stayed with everyone involved, but the sheer joy Brandon had for acting is also something that continued to inspire me. I think that’s something all the best actors have.”

Despite this varied career, Todd accepts that to some he will always be seen as the Candyman. It’s something he’s made peace with. “I realised a long time ago that when I pass away, Candyman will be the first thing mentioned. I am cool with it. But anyone who really knows me is aware that it’s not my whole story.”

How would he like to be remembered? “As a successful African American actor, who stood proudly on the shoulders of the actors who came before me like James Edwards, Canada Lee and Sidney Poitier. I hope people can see my dedication to the craft. With every role I’ve tried to locate the joy of the character I am playing, because when you find the joy, you can find the reason for the pain.”

This interview was originally published by the Telegraph in October 2021. It has been republished following the death of Tony Todd, aged 69.

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