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

The American actor died on Wednesday evening at his home in Los Angeles, according to reports.

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

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

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

In Candyman, the titular character of Todd 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 to the real world by a graduate student in Chicago who is intrigued by the urban legend of the Candyman, setting off a series of murderous events.

Speak with the Guardian in 2019Todd recalled the famous scene from the movie where Candyman was crawling with bees, in which he was stung 23 times and apparently paid a $1,000 bonus each time.

“Anything worth making has to involve some kind of pain,” he noted.

About his Candyman character, he told the same interview: “I’ve made 200 movies, this is the movie that sticks in people’s minds. It affects people of all races. I’ve used it as an introductory tool in gang intervention work. : what scares you? What terrible things have you experienced?”

In tribute, actor Virginia Madsen, who starred as student Helen Lyle in Candyman, said Todd “is an angel now. Like he was in life.”

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

“I will miss him so much and I hope he haunts me from time to time,” she added. “But I won’t summon him in the mirror!”

In the sequel to the original film, Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh, set three years later, Todd’s iconic lead role reappears in New Orleans, where he encounters a descendant of his daughter.

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

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

In 2020, Todd called that version “brilliant”describing the film’s director Nia DaCosta as “a fan of body horror”.

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

Before Candyman, one of Todd’s first film roles was in 1986 as Sergeant Warren in the war drama Platoon.