Tony Todd

Tony Todd, an actor best known for his starring roles in the "Candyman" and "Final Destination" film franchises, died November 6, 2024, at his home in Marina del Rey, California after a long illness at the age of 69.

Over the course of a prolific, four-decade career, Todd became best known for horror. That started with 1992’s “Candyman,” in which he played the terrifying title character. The ghost of an artist and slave’s son slain for an outlawed interracial affair, Candyman lives on as one of the great horror movie villains for the swarms of bees that swarm around his body and stream from his mouth, reflecting the way he was killed by a lynch mob. Todd returned for its two sequels in the ‘90s, “Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh” and “Candyman: Day of the Dead,” and he reprised his role in 2021’s “Candyman.”

After making his mark in horror with “Candyman,” in 2000, Todd became one of the stars of the “Final Destination” horror series. He played William Bludworth, a funeral director with deep knowledge of the rules of death. He appeared in four of the six “Final Destination” installments, one of only two recurring characters as each movie’s stars are killed over the course of their plots. His final appearance in the series will be in “Final Destination: Bloodlines,” set for release in 2025.

Though Todd was a legend of horror, it was far from his only genre. In fact, he was theatrically trained, and he made many appearances on Broadway over the years. His many notable early film roles include 1986’s “Platoon.” Todd later spoke about the notoriously harrowing filming experience. He noted that some of his co-stars were brought to tears, while he was in a somewhat better position playing Sergeant Warren, as he had advance warning of the conditions the cast would face.

Todd’s many other movies included “Colors,” “Lean on Me,” “The Crow,” “The Rock,” and “The Man from Earth.” On TV, he had a recurring role on “Chuck” as CIA Director Langston Graham and another on “The Flash,” a voice role as Zoom. He appeared on three different “Star Trek” series, playing Kurn in “The Next Generation,” adult Jake Sisko and Kurn in “Deep Space Nine,” and Alpha Hirogen in “Voyager,” and he provided voices for several “Star Trek” video games. Todd also made guest appearances on such shows as “The X-Files,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “Xena: Warrior Princess,” “Angel,” “Boston Public,” “The District,” “24,” “Riverdale,” and many others.

Todd on Candyman

“Once I read about the bees – this was before CGI, of course – I knew he would live infamously or not-so-infamously in cinematic history. The idea that they were coming out of this person just said to me that he was this powerful, demented force of nature. But I loved his elegance too. We wanted him to walk with pride.” — from a 2014 interview for Empire

By Linnea Crowther

(Photo: CBS via Getty Images)