The “Candyman” and “Final Destination” actor has died at the age of 69

Actor Tony Todd, best known for his starring role in the Candyman horror films, has died at the age of 69.

The American actor reportedly died at his home in Los Angeles on Wednesday evening.

He played the title character of the horror series, portraying the ghostly Candyman character with a hook for a hand, who was summoned by saying his name five times in front of a mirror.

Todd played the role of Candyman from the first film in 1992 through subsequent films in 1995 and 1999, reprising the role in 2021 for a fourth film that served as a direct sequel to the original.

Over the course of his 40-year career, Todd also appeared in hundreds of films, stage productions and television dramas, including roles in the films “Transformers” and “Final Destination.”

In Candyman, Todd's title character is the ghost of artist Daniel Robitaille, a black man who was lynched in the 19th century.

In the 1992 film, Todd's character is accidentally summoned into the real world by a graduate student in Chicago who is fascinated by the urban legend of the Candyman, setting off a chain of murderous events.

In conversation with the Guardian in 2019Todd recalled the film's famous scene where Candyman is swarmed by bees, in which he was stung 23 times and apparently paid a $1,000 bonus each time.

“Anything worth doing must involve some kind of pain,” he noted.

Regarding his character “Candyman” he said in the same interview: “I have made 200 films, this one stays in people’s memories. It affects people of all races. I used it as an introduction to gang intervention work.”: What scares you? What terrible things have you experienced?”

In tribute, actress Virginia Madsen, who played high school student Helen Lyle in “Candyman,” said Todd “is an angel now. Just like he was in life.”

She called him a “truly poetic man” with a “deep knowledge of the arts.”

“I will miss him so much and hope that he will haunt me every now and then,” she added. “But I won’t call him in the mirror!”

In the sequel to the original film – Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh – set three years later, Todd's iconic lead reappears in New Orleans, where he meets one of his daughter's descendants.

The third film – Candyman: Day of the Dead – was released in 1999 but is set in Los Angeles in 2020.

Todd and others from the 1992 film reprized their roles in the 2021 film.

In 2020, Todd called this version “brilliant”who describes the film's director, Nia DaCosta, as “a fan of body horror.”

As part of her tribute, Madsen praised the “gift” that the film's co-writer Jordan Peele gave himself and Todd of “letting us live as lovers again.”

Before Candyman, Todd had one of his earliest film roles as Sgt Warren in the 1986 war drama Platoon.