Sweets to the Sweet: A tribute letter to Tony Todd

“What do the good know other than what the bad teach them by their excesses?” - Tony Todd as the Candyman.

I remember the first time I ever heard you speak those words when I was a kid. You traumatized the mess outta me for months and yet I was still obsessed with you and your movie titled Candyman and I had to see more. Dear Tony Todd, you passed away last week and the world of entertainment and your fans are grieving hard, especially me. So I wanted to write you this letter of gratitude thanking you for the good you brought to the world with your artistic expression.

Born Anthony Tiran Todd on December 4, 1954 in Washington, DC, you came into this world with a passion for the arts and from a young age you were determined to be a performing actor for the stage and the screen. Growing up I saw you in a lot of movies and tv shows, but I didn’t notice you nor appreciate your work until I saw you in Candyman (1992) for the first time when I was just ten years old.

Dear Tony, I’m pretty sure you heard it a million and one times, but you scared the mess outta me when you portrayed Daniel Robitaille aka The Candyman. You were unlike anything the horror genre had ever seen before. A Black slasher with commentary about racism and the inner city and how it all effected your character’s journey. You did a great job at scaring everybody with your performance, but you scared African American audiences more than anyone else because we could relate to your character’s struggle the most. You were the slasher that spoke for us.

I also appreciate how sophisticated and well spoken you were as Candyman. I had never seen such a Shakespearean and poetic character before that mirrored what you brought to the table. After watching Candyman I realized that you were in a lot of movies that I grew up watching after I went back and viewed them again like Lean On Me (1986) and Caught Up (1998).

You always said that playing the Candyman was both a blessing and a curse because you love the character and it brought you a lot of great opportunity but you also struggled with being typecasted and only seen as that character. Well I’d like to be one of many who would tell you that though Candyman is my top favorite character of yours. All of your work from film and television beloved and largely appreciated.

Of course your roles in other horror films like Night Of The Living Dead and Hatchet were well loved, but you definitely stole the show as the mysterious coroner William Bludworth in the Final Destination series. I also loved seeing you in my favorite movies and tv shows like The Rock, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Xena:Warrior Princess, Angel and Charmed. In all of these works you did a great job of being the bad guy, the good guy, or even just being the moral middle ground. You really expressed true range as the deep performer you were.

When the news that you had passed away came in my heart sank. I’m not at all exaggerating when I say you brought a lot of joy to my life with your life’s work. I can specifically remember a day from when I was kid when my mom was struggling to feed us because we had fallen on hard times and the only thing I had to eat was some sunflower seeds and Diet Pepsi that belonged to my mom and she let me have it while she went to work. I took that Diet Pepsi and those sunflower seeds and watched Candyman 3: Day of the Dead. Suddenly life didn’t seem so hard while eating my mom’s snacks and watching Candyman.

Dear Tony, Though you’ve now passed away to a better place, the joy that you brought to the world with your artistic expression will live forever. I personally will forever be grateful for the iconic voice that you especially gave Black entertainers and fans, especially in the world of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. We Blerds (Black nerds) hold you in the highest regard as one of our forefathers of the culture. I am extremely grateful for your legacy. As you watch over us in the distance rest well knowing that the ways you paved and the marks you made will live on through us forever. In the famous words of the Candyman series: Sweets to the Sweet.

~Dedicated to the memory of Anthony Tiran “Tony” Todd. Sweets to the sweet.