HE CAME FROM DENTON HIGH:HE CAME FROM DENTON HIGH:
 
An Interview With Richard O'Brien By: Terry, Tiffany, & Becky DuFoe
 
Foreword By Tiffany DuFoe
 
      I would like, if I may to take you on a strange journey. It seemed a 
fairly ordinary day Friday August 13th, 1999, when I traveled to Rhino Records' 
first annual RetroFest, a three day tribute extravaganza of pop culture. As I 
entered the festival grounds everything seemed to be normal as my eyes drifted 
from one tent to another. Then all at once my gaze was captured as my attention 
fixed on a group of characters shrouded in decadent costumes and fishnets who 
surrounded a debonaire looking man. The group was Long Beach, California's own 
"Rocky Horror Picture Show" troupe "Midnight Insanity". The man was the 
unmistakable Richard O'Brien.
 
     To some the name Richard O'Brien doesn't conjure up any notion at 
all, much less provide a connection linking him to one of the top grossing cult 
films of all time, but to the legions of fans who faithfully attend midnight 
showings of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" every Sarturday night, he is the one 
and only "Riff-Raff". Born Richard Smith on March 25th, 1942 in Cheltenham, 
Gloucestershire, England, UK, Richard grew up harboring a love for science 
fiction, Marvel Comics, "B" movies, and rock n' roll. When he was 10 Richard 
moved to New Zealand and quit school at 15 at which time he entered farming 
school upon his parent's request. Upon completion of farming school Richard 
moved back to his native England planning to give London a "trial" year. O'Brien 
ended up staying in England, but not necessarily because he liked it. When he 
ran out of money, Richard was forced to cash in his return ticket and has been 
there ever since.
 
     Richard's early occupations (and preoccupations) included hair 
dressing, surfing, sweeping floors, and being a stunt man. Intrigued by acting 
O'Brien studied the Lee Strasberg method of acting and attempted to break into 
films. It was his ability to ride and handle horses that landed him his first 
small role in a film called "Carry On Cowboy", which was followed by another 
small bit part in "Casino Royale". Later O'Brien landed his first broadway role 
in "Hair". Then he won a role in Sean Kenny's "Gulliver's Travels" and later 
landed a one line role in "Jesus Christ Superstar" where he was again teamed 
with "Hair" director Jim Sharman. During the course of "Jesus Christ Superstar" 
O'Brien got the chance to play the much larger role of Herod, but after not 
"living up to the part" Richard was out of a job.
 
      Armed with the ideal of what a rock opera SHOULD be Richard began to 
compose three chord guitar songs and combine them with scraps of dialogue. Later 
when director Jim Sharman called Richard in to play the part of Willie the Space 
Freak in his new play "The Unseen Hand", Richard revealed that he had written "a 
little play" and asked the others to take a look at it. Needless to say director 
Jim Sharman loved it. The original play was put together under the name "They 
Came From Denton High" and was later changed to "The Rocky Horror Show". Theatre 
producer Michael White agreed to finance the production and the play opened in 
1973 at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs (An experimental 60 seat theatre where 
"The Rocky Horror Show" was intended to run for 6 weeks only.) with Richard 
playing the role of Riff-Raff the faithful handy-man. Even though he had written 
the role of Eddie for himself, Sharman thought O'Brien would be better as the 
eerie Riff-Raff so O'Brien agreed.
 
     The play was a hit and after the large success of the broadway play 
in both England and America, there was only one thing left to do; a movie! 
Richard began writing the screenplay and the title became "The Rocky Horror 
Picture Show" to suit the play's new venue. The movie's budget was a mere 1 
million dollars and the 6 week shoot was done at the Hammer lot at Brey in 
Bershire, England where an old victorian mansion that had served as a backdrop 
to some 40 other horror films was used. During the making of the movie the play 
opened in New York at the Belasco Theatre and flopped closing after 45 shows. 
This threatened the movie release and while the film failed to reach national 
distribution at the time, 20th Century Fox did distribute the film. Amongst all 
this, on April 1st, 1976 midnight screenings began in New York at The Waverly 
Theatre. "Rocky" had found it's underground audience who returned week after 
week and the film began it's rise to cult status.
 
     Richard O'Brien, who married in rhe early 70's, had one son, and 
later divorced in the early 80's, is mostly known for "The Rocky Horror Picture 
Show", but that is by no means the extent of his career. In 1981, Richard made 
"Shock Treatment" which was sort of a "Rocky" sequel, but not quite. Since then 
he has appeared in numerous movies, always offering fans his unique and devilish 
presence which is so impossible to forget such as one of his latest roles as the 
sedistic and menacing alien Mr. Hand from the film "Dark City". Richard O'Brien 
has a new CD release titled "Absolute O'Brien" which will be released in the 
United States by Oglio Records on September 7th, 1999. (To find out more about 
Oglio Records and obtaining "Absolute O'Brien" visit them on the web at 
http://www.oglio.com) The CD features songs from his one-man show 
"Mephistopheles Smith" as well as new original songs. 
 
     When I sat down with the articulate Mr. O'Brien, also lovingly known 
as "Reckless Rick" or "Ritz" by friends, he suprised me quite a few times by 
taking chairs from a nearby cart, setting them up by himself, and answering my 
first question before I had even opened my mouth. So I now offer to you my 
interview with one of England's greatest actors, writers, and singers Richard 
O'Brien, whose presence can only be described as "Absoulute O'Brien"! 
 
Richard: Hi, I am doing o.k. today! (Leaning into tape recorder)
 
Terry: Ok, sound check, sound check! (Laughs) The Phantom of the Movies awarded 
you "Best Alien" for "Dark City". What do you think about this?
 
Richard: I think that getting any kind of accolade from any direction is always 
good for actors. Actors are always very insecure and we always think we're a 
load of shit. We never think we get enough kind of, you know, smacks on the 
back. It was a part I was really delighted to do because when I met the director 
he said "I have to say that actually when I was writing this part I was thinking 
of you for this very very part and when I came to England to do the casting and 
they said we got you coming along, I couldn't believe my luck!" So, I didn't 
even really have to audition for it, truthfully, and I was so delighted to be 
there and play that role. I'd liked to have re-done the last scene if I could 
possibly though.
 
Terry: How would you have liked to re-done it?
 
Richard: Just a little bit more manic, a little more broken down. I would've 
liked to have gone a little bit more to the edge with that last scene, but you 
know, I didn't want to go over the edge with it. I felt that I had too much of a 
control on it, too much of a grip on it because I didn't want it to become 
cliche ham in any one of those scenes, if you're not very careful, it could turn 
into that kind of.... a little eggy, and I didn't want it to be that way.
 
Terry: How do you prepare for a role like that?
 
Richard: Ummm, you get pissed every night, and you smoke a lot of dope, and you 
stay up late, and you have a lot of sex, and you...... You see I was supposed to 
be, if you're familiar with the film, I was supposed to be an alien inside the 
body of a dead human-being and so, the worse I looked, the better I looked! 
Consequently I used to watch the sun come up every morning when I was filming. I 
was out there for five months in Australia and every night I was up, every every 
night and sometimes I'd be up for something like 48 hours and then the car would 
come and take me to the set and I'd go and do the gig. The worse I looked, the 
more done in I looked, the better they liked it so I was happy. I was having a 
great time and I was justifying all my bad behavior and my excessive behavior in 
the name of art! (Laughs)
 
Terry: When you were flying, how was that achieved? That wasn't digital, were 
you on wires?
 
Richard: When was that?
 
Terry: The scenes when you were flying over the city.
 
Richard: Flying, I was on wires, yeah.
 
Terry: Is there any funny stories about that? Did anything weird happen?
 
Richard: No, they got the stunt people very worried about it, but what's the 
problem you know? People have been flying on wires for years. On stage for God's 
sakes! On single wires, you know, and I've got a wire on either side of me where 
my arm is! Where am I going to go? What's the problem? The thing was is just to 
try and make it look as natural as possible. The other difficulty was I had 
extended fingers inside the gloves I was wearing so that was always difficult, 
you know, because your touch is very important and when you start to get that 
taken away from you it does make life difficult, but no I just loved doing that 
movie!
 
Terry: You studied at the Lee Strasberg School of Acting, is that right?
 
Richard: I studied that method. I didn't study with the actor's studio, I 
studied in London at the actor's workshop which was a kind of quasi rip-off of 
the studio. It was basically.....you know, it was the Stanislavsky method and 
all that kind of stuff, but yeah we all wanted to be method actors back in those 
days. If you were a young actor in the early 60's, you wanted to be like Marlon 
Brando or James Dean or Montgomery Cliff. I don't know, you wanted that 
internalize all the time. I think for film, I think it is very good. I think 
internalized acting is very good. Theatrically I don't think the method is much 
use. I think you need to go back and project. Know how to stand and expend 
energy and send energy out to the audience. You can't internalize that.
 
Terry: Do you like doing comedy or drama better?
 
Richard: I like the area of fantasy. I like working in fantasy. I'm staying 
basically in that area. I'm not very hot on doing naturalistic, ordinary.... 
what do you call it..... "kitchen sink dramas" and that kind of stuff. I'm not 
much good at that kind of thing and I don't want to do it. I don't want to be in 
that area. I've just been in the Cheque Republic making a film with a young 
American director called Corey Sullivan and it's "Dungeons and Dragons". I have 
a very small part in that, and of course I did it because I wanted to be in this 
fantasy movie. The money is shit, it's not going to change my career or give me 
a boost that way, but I just wanted to be part of it, you know and I do enjoy 
it.
 
Terry: You don't seem to have any problem getting work. A lot of actor's become 
so identified, like you with "Rocky Horror", that they can't get parts, but you 
seem to get parts. What do you attribute that to?
 
Richard: I'm prepared to do the work. A lot of people aren't prepared to do the 
work and a lot of people want to stick out for some kind of idea that they've 
got an inflated notion of their appeal and they want bigger parts and they get 
insulted with a small part. I go, "stuff it!" If I want to play the part, I play 
the part. I can afford not to work and I can stay at home if I want to, but if I 
want to do this part I don't give a monkey's whether it's a big part or a little 
part. If I want to be there, I'll make sure that I am and I think that the whole 
process of acting is highly suspect anyway. A lot of it is to do with 
exhibitionism. A lot of it is to do with narcissism. A lot of it is to do with 
"love me please", "applaud me please" and all the rest of it so it's very 
suspect. Dressing up as somebody else and making believe is a very suspect kind 
of process. I take that on board very much and I'm happy to be there and do it.
 
Terry: You're so open to the fans, like the "Rocky Horror" group and everything. 
Do you think more actors should be like you?
 
Richard: I think people should be the way they are, be themselves, and be 
natural. I think that's a message for everybody in life. I wouldn't tell other 
people how to live their lives. I think there are other people that play the 
power games simply because they're scared. I've worked with some of them, and 
they go to the trailer, and they don't talk to anybody, and they play that kind 
of aloofness and power game because they want more money and "If I'm accessible 
I'm not going to get more money. If I'm accessible I'm not going to get the 
work." I think that's the kind of way they go and they start to play the star 
routine because they think they won't get the respect. It's quite possible that 
they're absolutely right, but it don't work for me and it doesn't wash with me. 
I couldn't live like that. I am an accessible person and I like it that way. I 
like human-beings, and I like being in life, and I like talking to people, and 
I'm very happy to do that. That's just the way I am.
 
Terry: Now "Shock Treatment", a lot of people say it is the sequel to "Rocky 
Horror", a lot of people say it's not.
 
Richard: "Shock Treatment" is an abortion really. It started as a true sequel, 
"Rocky Horror Shows His Heels", "The Brad and Janet Show", we went through 
various kinds of titles and monsters rose from the dead, and Janet was having 
Rocky's baby, or Frank's baby, or even Brad's baby, we weren't quite sure. It 
was that kind of journey and Jim Sharman, our director, said "I don't want to do 
that." What we should've done was said "Well Jim you go make the movie you want 
to make, and we'll find another director and we'll develop this story line." We 
didn't, and we went through about 7 or 8 drafts until it got further and further 
away from what it was supposed to be in the beginning until we had "Shock 
Treatment", which really got lost because the story line got muddy. However, the 
soundtrack is brilliant, I think. I loved the soundtrack from "Shock Treatment". 
I think it's better than the soundtrack from "Rocky". The songs are better. I 
think I matured in my writing. I think Richard Hartley is a genius when it comes 
to arranging and producing music and I'm very happy with that.
 
Tiffany: In "Shock Treatment" there was an audience that was constantly at 
Denton. Was that a nod to the cult status of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and 
it's audience? 
 
Richard: I would be very careful, I never thought about that, no. But I think, 
truthfully, that it was probably actually not a very pleasant reference to the 
way people get caught up in fandom. It was more about...... truly, it was about 
"The Truman Show" and actually it was "The Truman Show" 20 years before "The 
Truman Show" and about how people get involved. It's more and more true today 
with the internet and that kind of area, with computer living, and virtual 
reality. People are losing touch with reality and they're living insular lives 
and getting confused between the fantasy and reality. I think that's sort of 
something we should look at. I think there were certain areas, sociological 
issues in "Shock Treatment" which were fascinating and were worthy of 
exploration. It wasn't what I intended to do with my share. I wanted it to be a 
real B-movie, horror sequel.
 
Tiffany: Is that what was intended by the rumored sequel "Revenge of the Old 
Queen"?
 
Richard: "Revenge of the Old Queen" was more of that. Yeah, I liked the "Revenge 
of the Old Queen" as a plot line. I think it was very good, but we had a problem 
there with Joe Roth. Not that Joe was problem, but he commissioned it and then 
he left Fox and went to Disney. Of course the incoming wasn't green lighted and 
the incoming new head of Fox went "I'm not taking on other people's projects. 
I've got my own projects." which always happens. If we'd got the green 
light..... if we'd got to the stage where we got the green light from Joe we 
would've moved with that, but things change. The head of Fox changed and we got 
lost in that shuffle.
 
Terry: Is there a chance it still might come out?
 
Richard: I don't think so. I'm quite apt to leave it behind. It is what I'm 
doing now and I hopefully will get it together....... I don't know, sloath is a 
part of my problem, I'm very sloathful , I don't see it as a sin, I see it as a 
kind of gift and my avoidance skills are improving on a daily basis....... and 
I'm supposed to be writing the "Rocky" sequel. Going back and taking the bits 
from "Shock Treatment", the original story line, and developing that for the 
stage. That's what I'm working on at the moment, but not very quickly, and it's 
supposed to be ready for January, but I'm afraid I might have to get someone 
else to come in and make me work at 10 O'clock every morning.  I don't actually 
work from 10 till 4 every morning because I don't do it. I get up and I go to do 
it and I go "Oh stop it!"
 
Terry: You have a new CD out now too called "Ultimate O'Brien"?
 
Richard: "Absolute O'Brien", yeah. Nice album, cool and groovy! 
 
Terry: It's only released in England?
 
Richard: Just going to be released here on September 7th.
 
Terry: Oh great! Who's going to be releasing it?
 
Richard: Oglio Records. There should be a copy here today, so they can give you 
one if you ask the right person. 
 
Terry: Oh great, absolutely! (www.oglio.com)
 
Richard: Nice music. Kind of, slightly jazzy. It wasn't intended to be, it just 
kind of finally worked out that way. The through line, the musical through line, 
kind of took on that kind of shape, even though some of the songs are slightly 
rock oriented and some of them are slightly western, country western. Even the 
country songs have got a jazz feel to them, strangely. I don't know how that 
worked.
 
Terry: Well your taste in music really varies then?
 
Richard: It's pretty.... yeah, pretty broad. I like ego-free zones, especially 
in music, and especially vocally. I love vocalists that are ego-free. A Billy 
Holiday, ego-free voice. Chet Baker is a ego-free voice and I like that and 
that's what I tried. I tried on this album to make it an ego-free zone. That the 
voice was back in the track and wasn't trying to be a show-off voice.  There's 
been too many show-off voices of late; some of them have been very good, you 
know, the Whitney Houston end of it. Michael Bolton could improve and take on 
board that less is more because he's got a great voice, but he just gives it to 
us full bore all the time and there's no where to go. If you save it all back, 
you know, and then just gave us that thrill of excitement every now and again 
you go "Oooh! How sexy!", but if you come on like gang-busters from day one 
there's no where to go. You've peaked too early and there's too much ego in the 
voice. There's too much show-off and I find that with a lot of singers today. 
Those diva shows that they put out on television that you must've watched, five 
girls on stage, it's like five lead guitarists on there trying to out play each 
other and at the end of the day it's just too much.
 
Terry: Did you get a chance to view David Arquette in the new production of 
"Rocky Horror?"
 
Richard: Unfortunately, I didn't get to see David. I got there after the change 
and so I thought the show.... I thought the cast were great. I didn't actually 
see David performance though.
 
Terry: Do you think Tim Curry would ever do a "Return of Rocky" if there ever 
was one?
 
Richard: I don't think so.
 
Terry: You don't think so?
 
Richard: No, I don't think so.
 
Terry: Ok, I appreciate this..... let me just ask you one more quick question.
 
Richard: Ok.
 
Terry: What are some of your favorite horror or sci-fi movies?
 
Richard: I think "Rosemary's Baby" is excellent. I think that's very good. What 
was the..... the night.... not "The Night of the Living Dead"...... I'm trying 
to think of the Dana Andrews one that I quote in "Science Fiction Double 
Feature".
 
Terry: Oh, ok, you're thinking of....
 
Richard: "The Night of the Demon"! 
 
Terry: Yeah, right!
 
Richard: I think that's great. I like anything with Vincent Price in it just 
because I like watching him so much. The way that he walked that line of comedy 
and horror at the same time was just very clever, very entertaining. I don't 
like, I absolutely abhor the slash horror movies that have proliferated in the 
last 10 or 15 years. I think they play to a very, a very dangerous and unhappy 
part of the human psyche for no good reason. I think it's reprehensible 
actually. I think those Freddy movies, Freddy Krueger movies, are actually 
unpleasant. I think they actually play to a very sick part of the psyche and has 
a damaging effect. I do think it does have a damaging effect. Not that people 
are going to go out and copy cat, but I think it brutalizes and desensitizes if 
you're not careful and I think horror with wit and care is always entertaining 
and taking us there in mental attitudes by suggestion is much better. But the 
slash horror is generally misoginistic, a lot of it. It's always young girls 
that are getting slashed or what not and I don't..... I think Tarantino has got 
a lot to fucking answer for. I think it's disgusting, truthfully. I think 
"Reservoir Dogs" is a disgusting movie. It's puerile in an adolescent kind of 
way, but it wallows in not the kind of like masturbatory kind of puerility, but 
in a very unpleasant wallowing in blood puerility. I think it's disgusting, 
quite frankly.
 
Terry: There was a rumor that there was supposed to be a "Rocky Horror" animated 
series. What ever came out of that?
 
Richard: Well, there was, but there was a rights dispute. I said the rights are 
mine, and they went, "No we own them", Fox said "No we own them." And I said 
"No, I don't think so. I think you'll probably find these rights are mine." Fox 
said "No, I'll tell you what. We own them and I'll tell you something else, if 
you assist in muddying the water we're going to hit you." So I spoke to Lou 
(editor's note: Lou Adler the executive producer for "The Rocky Horror Picture 
Show") and I said "This is no good." I said, "What do I get out of it? It goes 
back in the pot, they own it, and it goes back in the "Rocky" pot and I get half 
a pound than I asked for. Why should I give them anything?" and he said "Well 
I'll get you ten thousand dollars," he said as a.... what do you call it, 
somebody that's an advisory kind of capacity. I said, "Fine, well we're starting 
to get there. We're starting to get there." and so we had these talks and then 
after that had gone on they sent all these forms across the mail saying "Will 
you sign all these releases then?" "No. No! You say you've got the rights, but 
you're sending me forms to relinquish my rights, that means I've got rights! In 
which case we better have another fucking conversation!"
 
Terry: Really! (Laughs)  One last question here, what do you really think of the 
"Rocky Horror" fans? A lot of people think they're strange, some people think 
they're great, what do you think?
 
Richard: I think they're all individuals. They come together like a little 
family of  friends, like a club and there's nothing wrong with that. We all 
belong to different clubs and you know, whether we're Lakers fans or, you 
know... I don't know, Dodger's fans or whatever, Manchester United fans, there's 
no difference really. 
 
Terry: Well thank you very much. I appreciated this.
 
Richard: My pleasure.
 
 
Richard O'Brien Filmography
 
 
Actor filmography
 
Carry On Cowboy (1965) (uncredited) .... Indian Rider 
            ... aka Rumpo Kid (1965)
            ... aka Rumpo Kid, The (1965)
Casino Royale (uncredited)
Rocky Horror Picture Show, The (1975) .... Riff Raff 
Jubilee (1977) .... John Dee 
Odd Job, The (1978) .... Batch 
"Racing Game, The" (1979) (mini) TV Series .... Cowboy 
Kids Who Knew Too Much, The (1980) (TV) .... Commissioner Avery 
Flash Gordon (1980) .... Fico 
Shock Treatment (1981) .... Cosmo McKinley 
Revolution (1985) .... Lord Hampton 
Contraption, The (1985) 
Wolves of Willoughby Chase, The (1988) .... James 
"Crystal Maze, The" (1990) TV Series .... Host (1990-1994) 
Spice World (1997) .... Damien 
Ever After (1998) .... Pierre Le Pieu 
Dark City (1998) .... Mr. Hand 
Interactive Rocky Horror Show, The (1999) (CD ROM) .... The Game Devil 
 
Writer filmography
 
Rocky Horror Picture Show, The (1975) (also play The Rocky Horror Show) 
Shock Treatment (1981) 
Interactive Rocky Horror Show, The (1999) (VG) 
 
Composer filmography
 
Rocky Horror Picture Show, The (1975) (from play "The Rocky Horror Show") 
Shock Treatment (1981) 
 
Miscellaneous crew filmography
 
Return of Captain Invincible, The (1983) (lyricist) 
            ... aka Legend in Leotards (1983)
 
Notable TV guest appearances
 
"Robin of Sherwood" (1984) in episode: "Cromm Cruac" 
"Detectives, The" (1989) playing "Dr. Phibes" 

-END-