LOS ANGELES, Aug. 29 -- On Tuesday, two figures whose careers defined different edges of American entertainment died within hours of each other. Dolly Parton, the country music icon, was reported dead in Nashville. And Tim Curry, who spent fifty years making villains irresistible to the audiences they were supposed to frighten, died at his home in Los Angeles. He was 80.

No cause of death was announced Tuesday.

Dolly Parton's death drew the first wave of grief. Curry's arrived alongside it, occupying territory so different that it requires a separate emotional register: the midnight screening circuit, the annual parade of Pennywises at Halloween, the audience that has known every word to "Sweet Transvestite" since 1975 and has never nee...