Stars of the stage and screen, including two of his most notable co-stars – Susan Sarandon and Carol Burnett – are commemorating English actor Tim Curry, the cross-dressing Dr Frank-N-Furter of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Curry, who died in Los Angeles on Tuesday, aged 80, originated the role onstage before becoming the iconic figure in the movie adaptation that made him a cult star.

The prolific actor continued to leave his mark on both theatre and film productions, which ranged from Home Alone 2 and Annie to It and The Hunt for Red October, in a career spanning six decades.

“What I loved about him most was his heart,” Oscar-winner Sarandon said.

Sarandon, who played the heroine Janet Weiss in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, praised Curry as “a funny, sexy, original”.

She added: “Even wheelchair bound he continued to be so sweet and generous with his fans. Thank you Tim for meaning so much to so many people.”

Curry’s longtime manager and friend Marcia Hurwitz confirmed confirmed “passed away peacefully at his home in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles on August 25”.

Curry experienced a major stroke in 2012, and had used a wheelchair since.

Australian actress Nell Campbell, who also starred alongside Curry in The Rocky Horror Picture Show as Columbia, told the BBC: “I feel like the head of our family has just died because he was the head of the Rocky Horror family.”

Welsh actor Luke Evans, who played Frank-N-Furter in a Broadway revival, called Curry “a force, a bright fierce flame, an exquisite charm”.

In a letter he recently wrote to Curry, Evans thanked him for his fearlessness and for “creating something so enduring, and for inspiring generations of actors to be a little braver than they thought they could be”

The official Rocky Horror Picture Show on Broadway account similarly thanked the late actor for “giving the world a little more freedom, a little more fearlessness, and through the tears in our eyes, the courage to BE IT” – a nod to Curry’s delivery of the famous line from the musical: “Don’t dream it, be it.”

In a statement to Entertainment Weekly, writer and composer Richard O’Brien, who co-wrote the musical and film, remembered the actor as “a wonderful man by nature who was also a wonderful performer”.

“He never sought attention and never put himself before the roles that he played,” O’Brien said. “He was, in short, a good egg and class act.”

American comedy icon Carol Burnett shared a clip of Curry’s turn as her smarmy brother in Annie, posting on social media that “nobody could play lovable villains better than he could”.

Rob Schneider, who played the bell boy to Curry’s uppity hotel clerk in Home Alone 2, also praised Curry as a “sensational character actor”.

“A truly gifted performer of stage and screen, his one eyebrow could say more than most actors entire bodies,” Schneider said. “I am grateful to have the rare gift of watching him work, he made you better just standing near him.”

Clue co-star and Better Call Saul actor Michael McKean said on social media that his last conversation with Curry was about “life and love and laughter”.

“The grim physical state he found himself in has now ended, a blessing. Our blessing was that we had Tim Curry in our lives. RIP, my friend,” he wrote.

Two other stars of Clue, where Curry played a butler, Christopher Lloyd and Lesley Ann Warren, also paid tribute on social media, with Lloyd sharing a photo of Curry from the film along with a heart emoji and Warren calling Curry a “dear companion in crime.”

“The brilliant, hilarious, hysterically funny, magician of artistry has left us,” she said. “What an unbelievable joy to have shared a soundstage with him and to engage with such a master talent. I adored him. Bless his wild and inspired soul.”

Curry also starred in the 1996 film Muppet Treasure Island alongside Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog.

He was one of the few humans “to have earned the title of honorary Muppet”, the Muppets account posted on Tuesday.

“As a performer he was unparalleled – witty, charming, unnerving, and deeply funny. We will always consider it one of our greatest treasures to have been part of Long John Silver’s crew,” it added.