I consider myself 70 per cent male – my wife says it’s more like 50:50, says Rocky Horror Show creator Richard O’Brien
AS a young man wearing make-up and fishnet stockings, Richard O’Brien could have written a politically correct play about how “marginalised” he felt.
Thankfully, the creator of The Rocky Horror Show hates such “sanctimonious” dramas.
Instead, half a century ago, the 81-year-old writer, who went on to host TV gameshow The Crystal Maze, dreamed up the most outrageously camp musical ever to hit Britain.
In it, Richard performed pelvic thrusts to his song Time Warp dressed as a hunchbacked alien from “Transsexual, Transylvania”, while singing “Oh fantasy free me”.
The then out-of-work actor did not expect The Rocky Horror Show to last beyond its three-week run in June 1973 at an upstairs theatre in London with just 62 seats.
But the groundbreaking musical was an immediate word-of-mouth smash that counted David Bowie and horror movie legend Vincent Price among its early fans.
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Two years later, Richard’s script was turned into Hollywood movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show, starring Susan Sarandon and Meat Loaf.
Jack Nicholson, Stephen Fry, Nicole Scherzinger and Adrian Edmondson are among the stars who have been involved in special stage editions since then.
In total, the various productions are reported to have earned Richard north of £12million.
Today fans still dress up in extravagant costumes to catch the show as it tours the world.
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‘Flaunt yourself’
But in an age where so many people are obsessed with gender pronouns, Richard refuses to be defined by a label.
Rather than calling himself trans, the father-of-three, who is married to third wife Sabrina, says he is somewhere in between male and female.
Sticking two fingers up at convention, he tells The Sun: “I don’t like labels, I like to be an inbetweenie.
“I think I am a member of sentient beings who happen to be a little bit mixed up between the male and the female on a continuum.
“Some of us are hardwired to be male, some are hardwired to be female, but most of us are on that continuum. I just happen to be more towards the middle than most.”
He considers himself to be 70 per cent male — but his wife reckons that it is more like 50-50.
Richard adds: “I was working with the actor Anton Rodgers and he said, ‘I think you are the third sex’ and I thought that’s quite a nice position to be.”
Born in Cheltenham and brought up in New Zealand from the age of ten, Richard always knew he was different.
He recalls: “I grew up in New Zealand in a rural farming community, where blokes are blokes. It wouldn’t have been easy if you were too ‘out there’.”
His dad Alec was an accountant while Richard’s interest was in the arts rather than maths.
He left school aged 15 and tried various jobs, including farmer, hairdresser and glazier.
Seven years later, in 1964, he moved back to England, where he used his horse-riding skills to work as a stuntman in movies including Carry On Cowboy before training to be an actor.
It was the shock of being ditched from the role of King Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar after just a couple of rehearsals that riled Richard enough for him to decide to write his own musical.
He says: “It was the best thing that could have happened to me, because if that hadn’t I wouldn’t have written Rocky.
“I’m not saying I wrote it out of spite, but something close to it.”
The £300 pay-off he received from Superstar allowed him the time to expand on some songs he had already written.
At the time, the glam rock scene had taken off in Britain, with bands such as T. Rex and Slade enjoying huge hits, so there was an appetite for excess glitter.
Richard’s mash-up of wacky horror, science-fiction and comedy was unlike anything anyone had seen before.
He recalls: “I was a high-school drop-out, I was severely under- educated, and I was a chap who loved comics and B-movies and rock ’n’ roll and juvenile teenage elements, Rocky is full of that.”
Richard, who married his first wife Kimi Wong in 1971 and became a father to eldest son Linus a year later, was still trying to figure out who he really was.
The riotous tale of two high-school sweethearts both sleeping with a “sweet transvestite” was ahead of its time, considering that homosexuality had only been decriminalised in Britain six years earlier.
It was a chance for Richard to express his true self on stage — because it was too dangerous to do so on London’s streets.
He says: “I lived in my head. When you were transgender or gay in those days, you weren’t going to flaunt yourself around too much — your own safety depended on blending in and minding your manners.”
But he wanted to make sure the audience had fun.
The writer explains: “I hate theatre that beats you over the head with a message and is pleased with itself and sanctimonious and earnest — I hate it. When you go to the theatre you go to escape your troubles of the day, to forget them and be transported to another world on an enjoyable journey.”
Jim Sharman, who had directed Richard in the hippie musical Hair, liked the script enough to bring it to the Royal Court Theatre on Sloane Square in West London.
It’s a bed-hopping farce where the corset- wearing Dr Frank-N-Furter seduces young lovers Brad and Janet after they end up at his spooky castle.
In the original shows, Richard played the butler Riff Raff, who does the Time Warp to take his fellow aliens back to their home planet.
‘Ballet tights’
On opening night in June 1973, Witchfinder General movie star Vincent Price sat in the front row and it was an “instant hit”.
Richard says: “I was amazed after six months we were still running. When seven years passed I was even more amazed.
“I don’t quite understand what makes it so popular, but this is a show that appeals to the ordinary man and woman in the street.”
Richard went on to star in several movies, including Flash Gordon, Dungeons & Dragons and Spice World.
Hosting The Crystal Maze in a long fur coat for three years from 1990 was his most memorable TV role.
Remarkably, though, it took two decades from making Rocky Horror for Richard to publicly “come out” as trans.
And even then his mum Mary could not believe he was anything other than a regular bloke.
Richard laughs: “My siblings and my mother said, ‘What are you talking about? He’s not at all.’
“I said, ‘Have you seen pictures of me at barbecues, my brother Rob’s place, wearing make-up and earrings and ballet tights and a ballet wrap and cowboy boots?
“‘I think I was giving you a few clues, wasn’t I?’ ”
Even after having a son, Joshua, now 39, and daughter, Amelia, 33, with second wife Jane Moss, who he divorced in 2006, he was still confused about his identity.
“You live inside your head and that isn’t healthy,” he says.
In his fifties, Richard had a breakdown before realising it was the love of his family that truly counted.
He says: “At some stage I said, ‘F*** it, I am who I am’ and that was a strange thing.”
Richard, who married Sabrina in 2013, continues: “I don’t give a monkey’s — my wife loves me, my children love me, my friends love me and I am quite open.”
In 2020 he suffered a stroke at his home near Katikati in New Zealand.
Thankfully, it was a minor one and he has recovered sufficiently to work on a satirical fairytale called Kingdom Of Bling.
Richard says: “I am well but I wouldn’t recommend old age. The worst bit is I get arthritis in my thumbs.”
One thing audiences attending the Rocky Horror shows through the UK this year won’t have to worry about is being arrested for singing along.
Earlier this month police removed audience members from The Bodyguard musical in Manchester for disrupting the performance.
But an interactive element has long been a key to The Rocky Horror Show’s success.
During one performance, when Richard’s character went to shoot Frank, David Bowie’s then-wife Angie was in the audience and she shouted out: “Don’t do it!”
These days the audience plays along with the cast, calling out and singing at key points.
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Richard concludes: “People say Rocky is coming to town — let’s have a party.”
- The Rocky Horror Show tours the UK until October 2023. For more information visit,
