The performance that inspired Tony Todd to become a horror icon: “I was given hope”
Tony Todd firmly cemented his place in the horror genre as an icon when he dedicated himself to the titular role in Candyman by doing something that few actors would be brave enough for: he actually put all of those bees in his mouth, getting copiously stung in the name of cinema.
“Everything that’s worth making has to involve some sort of pain. Once I realised it was an important part of who Candyman was, I embraced it. It was like putting on a beautiful coat,” he once told The Guardian. You’re probably thinking, ‘you’d have to pay me a lot of money to do that’, and certainly, Todd wasn’t stupid and negotiated with the filmmakers to end up receiving an extra $1,000 every time he was stung during shooting.
When he wasn’t playing the Candyman, however, Todd could be found in an array of other scary movies, from the Final Destination franchise, in which he played William Bludworth, a strange funeral home owner who imparts his impressive knowledge of death on the characters, to the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead.
Horror remakes were all the rage back then, even if they weren’t exactly necessary, but Todd was happy to appear in the movie because getting the chance to play Ben was a big deal for him.
The character, played by Duane Jones in the original 1968 movie directed by George A Romero, was a hugely significant part of Todd’s journey to becoming an actor, because it was the first time he realised that, as an African American man, he could become a horror icon. Not only that, the character’s skin colour isn’t relevant to the plot, and this was a turning point for the genre.
Jones had secured his first movie role with Night of the Living Dead, and at this time, Black actors were hardly cast in leading roles, let alone heroic ones, among an otherwise all-white cast, but Romero was so impressed by Jones’ audition that race simply wasn’t on his mind. So, the actor subsequently landed the role of Ben, inadvertently paving the way for greater opportunities for African American actors in Hollywood.
When Todd first saw this performance, he realised that there was a place for him, too, explaining to Fangoria, “Well, Duane Jones and all those people created the template. George Romero, John Russo, Russ Streiner, they set the standard for all things zombie. Yes, there had been zombie films before that; I Walked With a Zombie was probably the start of it, though, I think there was one in the ’20s, probably a silent film, that I’ve never been able to get my hands on, that dealt with some sort of plantation-zombie story.”
“But anyway, I remember seeing the original [Night at the Living Dead] at a drive-in, and it felt like a documentary, and as an African American, I was given hope because Duane Jones was able to create a character from beginning to middle to end without any reference to his being African-American,” Todd continued.
With his role in the remake propelling his career as an actor, he soon found himself offered much more prominent roles, and thus Candyman was born, becoming one of the most successful horror movies of the 20th century.
