The previous stage at West Hollywood’s Roxy Theatre appears as small as ever to Tim Curry. Again in 1974, the actor spent almost a yr strutting throughout its boards in fishnets and a comfortable corset as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the flamboyant, sexually ravenous mad scientist of the musical comedy “The Rocky Horror Present.”
Witnesses to that run of performances nonetheless marvel on the spectacle of Curry’s nightly entrance, as he marched from the foyer on a protracted catwalk, his excessive heels at eye stage with the viewers. He would then solid apart his Dracula cape to sing a private theme tune, “Candy Transvestite.”
“It’s truly very nice to be right here as a result of it was one other house for me,” says Curry, 79, trying up on the empty stage contained in the Sundown Strip nightclub. “It turned my stomping floor. I needed to seem as if I owned it — and I sort of did.”
On the finish of that very same yr, Curry was again house in England to shoot the characteristic movie model, “The Rocky Horror Image Present,” a rock ’n’ roll send-up of previous sci-fi and horror B-movies that turned each a cult basic and a vibrant image for sexual freedom. It’s the unique midnight film and is now being feted around the globe for its fiftieth anniversary with a second life because the longest steady theatrical launch in cinema historical past.
Tim Curry, heart, as Frank-N-Furter in 1975’s “The Rocky Horror Image Present.”
(John Jay Picture / Disney)
The position modified Curry’s profession perpetually, and he will probably be a part of a few of these celebrations, starting with a screening of a newly restored 4K model of the movie, together with a panel Q&A, on the Academy Museum on Friday.
On the time of the movie’s unique launch in 1975, it tapped right into a cultural zeitgeist that combined glamour and androgyny, akin to the period’s glam-rock motion led by David Bowie. “The Rocky Horror Image Present” finally discovered a cult of followers who gathered for weekly midnight screenings in costume because the film’s outlandish characters, performing as a “shadow solid” in concord with the movie onscreen.
“It was a part of the sexual revolution, actually,” says Curry. “Experiment was within the air and it was palpable. I gave them permission to be who they found they wished to be. I’m pleased with that.”
Since a stroke in 2012, the actor has been in a wheelchair and most of his work has been in voiceover. He did seem on digicam in a 2016 remake of “Rocky Horror” for tv, this time because the criminologist. However it was because the lascivious, self-confident Frank-N-Furter that Curry made historical past.
On this afternoon, he’s wearing black, auburn hair slicked again. Within the Roxy’s foyer is a portrait of Curry in character because the mad physician in pearls. It was a job he originated in London, on the tiny stage upstairs on the Royal Court docket Theatre, the place it first turned an underground sensation.
“Even for the time, there was plenty of braveness that went into that efficiency,” remembers Jim Sharman, who directed Curry within the unique stage productions in London and Los Angeles after which onscreen. “Tim himself was truly a sort of quiet mental offstage, however onstage he actually knew tips on how to let it rip.”
Curry, heart, in “The Rocky Horror Image Present.”
(Disney)
With a narrative and songs written by actor Richard O’Brien, who additionally performed the skeletal, sarcastic Riff-Raff, “Rocky Horror” begins with a younger couple caught in a rainstorm who method a mysterious fortress seeking shelter and a cellphone.
Performed by then-unknowns Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick, the couple discover Frank-N-Furter is internet hosting a conference of partying aliens in formalwear from the planet Transsexual within the galaxy Transylvania.
The mad physician can be anxious to indicate off his newest experiment, the creation of a superbly fashioned male, a private plaything of chiseled muscular tissues and blond hair, as he sings “I Can Make You A Man.” The scene leaves an impression.
“He takes no prisoners — it’s his world and also you simply occur to dwell in it,” Curry says with a smile of his Frank-N-Furter. “He doesn’t depart a lot air within the room. And I loved that as a result of it was so not like me, actually.”
Notably, the movie shares a 50-year anniversary with “Jaws,” and Curry remembers somebody at twentieth Century Fox putting newspaper advertisements that yr for “Rocky Horror” with the movie’s shiny purple lips picture and phrases promising, “A unique set of jaws.”
“Jaws,” after all, was a record-breaking summer time blockbuster, however because the longest-running theatrical launch of all time, “Rocky Horror” actually has no competitors by way of influence. It helped set up a tradition for midnight films in open-ended rotation, from David Lynch’s “Eraserhead” to Paul Verhoeven’s “Showgirls.”
On the customary hour of midnight, the restored 4K movie will probably be premiering throughout the nation this weekend, with particular screenings and Q&As on Oct. 4 at Hollywood Ceaselessly Cemetery and Oct. 15 on the Grammy Museum. The movie will then be rereleased on Blu-ray on Oct. 7, with a reissue of the official soundtrack album on Oct. 10.
Additionally touchdown in time for the celebration is a brand new documentary, “Unusual Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror,” directed by Linus O’Brien, son of “Rocky Horror” writer and composer Richard O’Brien. The 90-minute movie explores the making of the film, the unique stage musical and the many years of fan tradition that adopted.
“When a murals survives this lengthy, it’s engaged on many alternative ranges,” says the youthful O’Brien, who was a toddler on the set. “You need to dwell in that home and have these naughty experiences. [People] will probably be speaking about it lengthy after we’re all lifeless.”
The “Rocky Horror” journey from underground theater to characteristic movie started after Los Angeles music impresario Lou Adler noticed the present throughout a visit to London. Often known as a supervisor and file producer (Carole King’s “Tapestry”), Adler was shaken from his jet lag, immediately recognizing “Rocky Horror” as a possible attraction for his lately opened L.A. membership, the Roxy. Inside two days, Adler signed a deal to host its U.S. premiere.
On the Roxy, the present was an instantaneous sensation, fueled by Curry’s wildly charismatic efficiency. Opening night time introduced out a crowd that included Jack Nicholson, John Lennon and Mick Jagger. L.A. Instances theater critic Dan Sullivan in contrast Curry to numerous Hollywood grande dames (Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, amongst them).
“It was one of many nice events of all time,” Adler remembers throughout a video name from his house in Malibu. “The acceptance was unbelievable.”
Discuss of turning the stage musical right into a film quickly adopted and a deal was made with twentieth Century Fox, with producers Adler and Michael White guaranteeing supply on a modest price range of about $1 million.
“I don’t know if twentieth Century Fox ever understood the movie,” Sharman says with amusing, in a video name from Australia. “They may’ve been relieved that it was happening a low price range and being made on any individual’s lunch cash.”
It was the primary characteristic movie for a lot of of them. However Adler and White insisted on maintaining the stage musical’s inventive staff collectively, together with Sharman, costume designer Sue Blane and manufacturing designer Brian Thomson. With Curry firmly within the lead position, many of the solid members have been drawn from the London manufacturing. Becoming a member of them have been American actors Sarandon, Bostwick and singer Meat Loaf.
“I adored her,” Curry says of Sarandon. “She was a witty lady and so lovely, and an actual actress, I believed. You possibly can inform that she had one thing.”
He additionally turned mates with Meat Loaf, who appeared within the small however impactful position of Eddie, bursting out of a freezer on a motorbike lengthy sufficient to sing the manic “Scorching Patootie, Bless My Soul.” In 1981, Curry hosted “Saturday Evening Dwell” and appeared with Meat Loaf in a skit that had the actors promoting “Rocky Horror” memorabilia. (Curry continues to be irritated by that one: “Dreadful.”)
Lou Adler, photographed on the Roxy in West Hollywood in 2023.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Instances)
“When the film was a particular factor, there have been a number of large stars who wished to play the half,” Curry remembers. “Mick Jagger wished to play it and he would’ve completed an excellent job for those who noticed ‘Efficiency.’ However [director Sharman] stated he wished me to do it. I don’t suppose the studio was completely happy that he turned down Mick.”
Although Sharman was a really skilled stage director, he had made just one earlier movie, a 16mm characteristic referred to as “Shirley Thompson vs. the Aliens.” For “Rocky Horror,” he says he was aiming for “a darkish model of ‘The Wizard of Oz.’” He was additionally impressed by previous B-movies and German Expressionism together with classes discovered from the stage. Inside scenes have been shot on the previous Hammer horror movies’ Bray Studios simply exterior London.
“The explanation we don’t have nice anecdotes from the shoot is we didn’t have time for anecdotes,” provides Sharman. “It was shot in 5 weeks.”
Bostwick, showing in considered one of his first movie roles, remembers, “It felt like a really low-budget however colourful, brilliant and galvanizing musical. You knew from the second you have been across the units and costumes and lighting and make-up and digicam folks that they have been on the high of their sport.”
“The Rocky Horror Image Present” advanced in some refined however significant methods in its transition from the stage. For the dwell performances, Curry did his personal make-up. “Within the theater, I made it look much more novice, intentionally, like he wasn’t good at it however was making a courageous try and didn’t care a lot,” Curry says with amusing. “Within the play, it was only a lot trashier.”
For the movie, French make-up artist Pierre La Roche was recruited to refine Frank-N-Furter’s exterior. La Roche had beforehand labored with Bowie through the Ziggy Stardust period.
“He was certainly very French,” says Curry, campily. “He was sensible.”
An early signal of the challenges the film would face arrived at an early screening of the finished movie for Fox executives. Curry was there with Adler. “You possibly can contact the silence on the finish,” remembers Curry. “It wasn’t a really alive viewers. There was actually no response in any respect.”
Fox additionally hosted a check screening in Santa Barbara. The viewers was a neighborhood mixture of retirees and college college students, and most of the older filmgoers started heading for the exit, till the theater was almost empty.
However as Adler and a younger Fox govt named Tim Deegan sat on the curb exterior, in addition they met younger individuals who have been excited in regards to the movie. Adler credit Deegan for locating the “Rocky Horror” viewers in an sudden place: indie theaters at midnight.
Its second life started on the Waverly Theater in New York, the place it started evolving right into a taking place that was each a film and a theatrical expertise. On the time, Curry occurred to dwell inside strolling distance of the Waverly.
“It was a type of assured social gathering,” he says of any potential moviegoer. “And if he didn’t deliver a date, he may maybe discover one.”
On a latest weekend on the Nuart Theater in West L.A., barely 5 miles away from the Roxy, it’s approaching midnight and the foyer is stuffed with followers and volunteer shadow performers in “Rocky Horror” drag. Showing as Frank-N-Furter is Kohlton Rippee, 32, already in his heels and make-up.
Like many right here, he sees the movie as each an outlet and a connection to a discovered household — a method “to see facets of themselves represented in ways in which they don’t see from conventional media. It’s like, ‘Oh, I can see myself on this and discover this bizarre group to be round.’”
Bostwick first heard of the movie’s second life from others and phrase trickled in that his each look onscreen was met with an affectionate callback from the gang: “Ass—!” He didn’t see the phenomenon himself till later on the Tiffany Theater on Sundown.
“What do they are saying, that Disneyland is the happiest place on Earth? I’ve all the time thought {that a} Friday and Saturday night time at a theater at midnight was the happiest place on Earth,” the actor says of the various raucous screenings he’s witnessed. “Everyone was simply having a ball.”
After Walt Disney Co.‘s 2019 acquisition of twentieth Century Fox, it turned the Home of Mouse into the unlikely steward of “Rocky Horror.” Again in 1975, nothing may have been farther from the Disney model than a rock ’n’ roll musical a couple of cross-dressing scientist. That yr, Disney launched “The Apple Dumpling Gang.”
“I suppose Walt is sort of revolving in his grave,” Curry jokes.
Even so, Adler says Disney has been a very good associate on “Rocky Horror” and is supporting the a number of official anniversary occasions. “Walt was a breakthrough man,” the producer notes. “He broke by way of and made a mouse a hero. So, in a method, he had his personal Frank-N-Furter.”
