Richard O\u2019Brien (who also plays Riff Raff)<\/a>, the show was an overnight hit. The movie that spawned from the musical, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, was a much slower burn but now holds the record as the longest-running film in history.<\/p>\nLate last year, Campbell was part of a 30-date tour across the US celebrating the 50th anniversary of Rocky\u2019s cinematic release, alongside fellow cast members Barry Bostwick (Brad Majors) and Patricia Quinn (Magenta).<\/p>\n
Sellout crowds of up to 4000 fans turned up for a fancy dress competition \u2013 judged by Campbell \u2013 a Q&A, and a screening of the film, accompanied by shadow performers acting out the scenes. In April, another tour kicks off in the UK.<\/p>\n
During a quick breather in between, Campbell is flying to Auckland this month as guest of honour at the opening night of a visiting West End production of the stage musical.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t really know what\u2019s going to be expected of me,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ll find out when I get there. I\u2019d better pack my tap shoes. Anything could happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Nell]()
Nell Campbell as Columbia (from left) with Patricia Quinn (Magenta), Tim Curry (Frank-N-Furter) and Richard O’Brien (Riff Raff) in the 1975 film The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
Kristian Lavercombe, an honorary Kiwi who began his acting career here, is playing The Narrator, with Stephen Webb as Frank N. Furter. More typically cast as Riff Raff, Lavercombe holds the world record for the most performances by any actor in the history of the show, with more than 2600 appearances.<\/p>\n
After living overseas for more than three decades, Campbell settled back home in Australia in 2005 with her daughter Tilly Campbell (now a 27-year-old DJ living in New York).<\/p>\n
Over the years, she\u2019s stayed in touch with pretty much all of the Rocky Horror crew, including Tim Curry and Susan Sarandon \u2013 \u201crhymes with abandon\u201d. Meatloaf, Columbia\u2019s love interest, who Frank-N-Furter kills with an ice axe, died of Covid in 2022. <\/p>\n
Campbell is particularly looking forward to catching up with O\u2019Brien during her trip to Auckland. Rocky Horror has remained a big part of his life, too. <\/p>\n
Today, he\u2019s in Hamilton for a Valentine\u2019s Day party celebrating the return of his bronze Riff Raff statue to its original position at the redeveloped Embassy Park, where he once frequented late-night horror movie screenings while working as a barber next door.<\/p>\n
![\"Strange]()
Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror, a documentary by Richard O’Brien’s son Linus, screened at the DocEdge Festival in 2025.<\/p>\n
Now in her early 70s, Campbell has had a colourful life and sounds like excellent fun. And I\u2019m not saying that just because she admired my pixie haircut \u2013 \u201cIt sets off your clothes if you have hair above the jawline\u201d \u2013 and my retro brown and mustard-yellow top. \u201cI shan\u2019t forget your giraffe-coloured shirt,\u201d she later emails. <\/p>\n
At Kensington Market in London, she once sold clothes from a stall next to Freddie Mercury\u2019s before he was famous and still remembers him fondly. \u201cHe was a very loved person. Funny, you know, and as camp as can be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the years, she has owned a nightclub, Nell\u2019s, in Manhattan, as well as two New York restaurants. In 2003, she made her Broadway debut alongside Antonio Banderas in a revival of the musical Nine and has a one-woman show, All\u2019s Nell that Ends Nell, that she\u2019d love to bring to New Zealand. <\/p>\n
Even now, she never tires of hearing how much Rocky Horror has meant to people. During last year\u2019s US tour, a middle-aged man brought along his 70-year-old mother dressed up as Janet in a pink dress, white cardigan and pearls.<\/p>\n
At another show, a woman told Campbell that her parents had gone to the film on their first date; she was conceived the same night. \u201cSo, her mother lost her virginity twice,\u201d Campbell says, mischievously, referring to the term traditionally used to describe someone who hasn\u2019t been inducted into Rocky Horror yet.<\/p>\n
![\"Barry]()
Barry Bostwick as Brad (centre) and Susan Sarandon as Janet (right) play high-school sweethearts who fall under the spell of a transsexual alien, played by Tim Curry (Frank-N-Furter), in the film. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
Bostwick, who the rest of the cast considered as nerdy as Brad during the chaotic five-week film shoot, had a later-career revival playing the mayor in the US sitcom Spin City. <\/p>\n
He\u2019s been working the Rocky circuit for the past four or five years and Campbell says he\u2019s as handsome as ever \u2013 ripping off his suit on stage to reveal fishnet stockings underneath.<\/p>\n
When the outrageously high-camp musical first erupted on to the scene, its storyline about transsexual aliens corrupting a pair of innocent all-American high-school sweethearts didn\u2019t seem particularly racy to Campbell, who\u2019d been raised with liberal views.<\/p>\n
At one recent show, someone asked about the movie\u2019s orgy scene, filmed in a swimming pool. \u201cMy reply was, \u2018A wet orgy\u2019s the same as a dry orgy. Everyone gravitates toward the star\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, with conservatism hardening in the US, she thinks Rocky Horror\u2019s playfulness and its message of acceptance are more needed than ever.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a licence to express yourself freely and be proud of who you are,\u201d she says. \u201cWhether it\u2019s recognising your sexuality or lost souls realising that not everyone has to be conventional. It just seems to open people up \u2013 and they can fly.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Rocky Horror Show<\/a> opens at The Civic in Auckland, February 26-March 8, then tours to Christchurch, March 11-14, and Wellington, March 18-29. <\/p>\nJoanna Wane is an award-winning senior lifestyle writer with a special interest in social issues and the arts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI pretty much threw off my apron,\u201d Campbell, who was also cast in the movie that followed two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[15555,156,6440,410,185,130,435,23362,132520,111,139,69,90,6274,8730,2737,131,4276],"class_list":["post-283618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-campbell","tag-entertainment","tag-ever","tag-horror","tag-is","tag-more","tag-movie","tag-needed","tag-nell","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-recordbreaking","tag-rocky","tag-star","tag-than","tag-why"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}