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Best known for his role in movies like Final Destination and Candyman, actor Tony Todd passed away on November 6, 2024, at his home in Marina Del Rey, California. The actor's representative confirmed his death to PEOPLE without specifying a cause of his demise. He was 69.
He played the role of Daniel Robitaille in the 1992 horror film Candyman, wherein he was a hook-handed killer. Tony's character in the movie was lynched by a white mob in a place where a public housing project is built later, which his character haunts. In the movie, Tony's character is summoned when someone says "Candyman" five times before a mirror.
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In a prominent scene of the movie, bees come out of Tony Todd's mouth as he leans in to kiss his co-star Virginia Madsen. Talking about the same in an interview with Entertainment Tonight dated October 27, 2022, Tony said that he got an estimated $1000 per bee sting, mentioning he got stinged 27 times while filming the iconic scene.
The publication mentioned that 200,000 bees were used for Candyman's scene, commenting on which Tony added that he had a great lawyer at the time who got him paid for enduring the same.
"The bees were the worst nemesis": Tony Todd mentioned in interview about iconic bee scene from Candyman
Tony Todd's October 2022 Entertainment Tonight interview alongside co-star Virginia Madsen was to celebrate Candyman completing 30 years since its release. While the actors talked about their experience shooting the film, Tony described the iconic bee scene in detail.
While talking about the bees, the late actor said:
"The bees were the worst nemesis."
Tony also mentioned that a dental dam was made for shooting the scene so that the bees wouldn't go further down his mouth. Madsen added that the bees even had their own trailer.
She also shared that it doesn't make one feel confident when there is a big net cage set up around the scene to protect the crew with an ambulance standing by. Tony Todd added that "actors are trained to be fearless" and called the scene from Candyman a "fearless moment," which stood the test of time.
The 1992 movie has been a prominent aspect of Tony Todd's acting career, and he also spoke about the same during his interview with Entertainment Times. Calling his experience doing the movie "worth it," the late actor commented on the racial importance of the film.
"It was well worth it and not just the bonus check, but being one of the first African Americans in a horror film that does not enslave us. When I first read it, I looked for those traps. I wanted to make sure that if you’re going to be one of the first significant Black actors in a horror film, you better make sure that it's complete, that it tells a story from beginning to middle and end, and that’s what I saw in the script," Tony said.
Toward the end of his interview with ET, Tony said that he was proud of the film and has been glad to be a part of it. Calling Candyman a part of his legacy, the late actor said that he had been working nonstop for 30 years and that it was a good thing. Tony Todd is survived by his wife Fatima and children Ariana and Alex.
