Nell Campbell (or ‘Little Nell’, a name from her childhood that’s stuck) recently spoke by phone to RIU about her role as Columbia in the original stage version of The Rocky Horror Show, the transition to playing it again in Jim Sharman’s film of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), and how the Rocky Horror phenomenon just won’t go away more than 40 years later. And how much she loves it, although at first she pretends that we should actually be discussing The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg (?).
So Nell, here we are 40 years after the Rocky Horror movie and 42 years after it was first performed on the stage and so many people still love it, sing along to it, dress up for it and even get laid to it…
That’s right! It’s a combination of sex and great songs and great humour. Such a funny script, so sharp and tight. The songs are great, and they still work, and a great song lasts forever. They’re all great, and it’s a wonderful musical with homo/hetero sex, cross-dressing, songs, movie jokes and everything. And Meat Loaf and Susan Sarandon, who was fantastic in it, and everyone. And Tim Curry, of course.
When The Rocky Horror Picture Show was first released it was considered a flop, right? But then it had this unexpected second and ongoing life as an audience participation experience…
They do a similar thing now with The Sound Of Music…
And they try and do it with the dreadful The Room, but that hasn’t got songs…
The singing really helps! The kids love to sing along to the songs and that’s a key part of it all.
You play Columbia in the film [apparently listed as ‘A Groupie’], and you have that solo verse in the Time Warp sequence [“Well, I was walking down the street…”] and a tap-dancing number too…
It’s one of those songs where three people [creator Richard O’Brien/Riff Raff, Patricia Quinn/Magenta and Nell] have a verse each, and it’s a very good song. They’re all very good songs! That helped with the longevity – and there’s not a dud song in it. All great, and that is not to be underestimated.
So you were born in Sydney, moved to London and were spotted selling shoes there by Jim Sharman, another Aussie, right?
No, not quite. I was in London and I’d actually met Jim before in Sydney, but him and Richard O’Brien and [musical director] Richard Hartley all came to where I was working as a soda-jerk in a café in Knightsbridge. They arrived there and I was dressed in 1930s clothes, which was how I how I always dressed at the time, with bob hair and satin shorts and a polka-dot blouse and tap shoes. And I served them by tap dancing to their table, and after that Richard immediately added the tap routine to the Time Warp. Or did he write the song after that? I’m not sure, but the tap routine was definitely inspired by that.
And that was 1972?
1872!!!
And then you were in the original stage show at the Theatre Upstairs in Royal Court in 1973?
It was very small and only held an audience of 60 [actually 63] people, but it took off and was a total overnight sensation, and I thought, ‘Oh, does this always happen in show business?’ I was only 21 and it was the only show that I’d been in in London! It all seemed very natural though, and Mick Jagger and everyone were coming along to see it.
That kind of sensation is very rare and probably can’t really happen like that any longer…
Oh, it could happen again!
And there was never any doubt that you would be carried over from the stage show to the film?
Jim wanted all the people who had been in the play to be in the film, but 20th Century Fox insisted that they have two American people with sort-of-names in it, and so Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick are in it because of that… But Susan and Barry are brilliant.
Your movies after Rocky Horror include Lisztomania for director Ken Russell, with Roger Daltrey and Ringo Starr and a crazy cast…
I had a scene in bed with Roger in that one, but that day his wife had just had a baby and so he was more distracted than I had hoped! We were in bed and Ringo came in as the Pope and caught us.
And Pink Floyd The Wall?
I’m in that for about two seconds! A virtual extra!
And the 1998 Ethan Hawke-starring modern version of Great Expectations?
Yes, I was in that. I auditioned for it the usual way – the usual tragic, primitive way.
And the ABC’s Rake?
Yes, and in fact I’m great friends with Charles Waterstreet, who’s the basis of the Cleaver character, which is very funny.
And then there was all that theatre work and the albums and the infamous blooper of you performing Do The Swim on a 1975 TV show [look for it now on YouTube]…
I did do that! Who would have thought that 40 years later we’d still be talking about that too? That bathing suit that didn’t fit properly! That blooper became a little cult itself… I look at that now and it’s so charming and I look like such a trouper.
And wasn’t there a nightclub you ran in the ‘80s?
Nell’s in New York in the late ‘80s, yes. It was an enormous success and I didn’t see daylight for five years.
But Rocky Horror never went away, so did you ever grow tired of being drawn back to it?
No!!! Not at all!!!… Richard just wrote a fabulous musical and I love it! Richard’s done other musicals too, like Shock Treatment, which was a sort of sequel to Rocky Horror that didn’t quite take off but he’s now redoing for the theatre in London… It’s brilliant what Richard did. And it’s never been a problem for me that people love something that I did such a long time ago – so long ago that it feels like 1810 to me! People come up to me and say that they love it and I feel glad for them, and I’m the lucky gal who got cast in it, and got 18 pounds a week when it began, and that finally stretched to 50 pounds a week towards the end of my seven month run in the stage version. And then I got 2000 pounds for the film, and no royalties… But I’m still just very glad that everyone gets such a huge kick out of it!!!
I Wake Up Screening 