Tim Curry, who died this week at 80, will probably always be best known for his performance as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and not unreasonably. With his snug corset and unsubtle make-up and minuscule shorts to which are fastened fishnet stockings, Curry’s kooky scientist with a penchant for brewing male lovers in his lab is one of pop-culture’s unlikely icons. Frank-N-Furter exists in the gap between the counter culture and punk, the child of classic musicals and 1930s B-movies. The performance is daringly weird, perverse and outlandish, seductively charming, and, for all the flamboyance, Curry never veers out of control, never takes it too far. With his gender-defying garb and the way he gleefully flaunts his sexuality, Frank-N-Furter is an inimitable figure, unburdened by shame. And this strange, beseeching man who proudly eschews the mainstream’s prissy morals isn’t an outcast: he rules over a large, diverse assembly of hired help and acolytes who seem, largely, to like him. In any case, they’re content enough spontaneously break into carefully choreographed musical numbers. He’s a mad scientist, but Curry plays him as something more interesting, something weirder, than a villain.