It’s campy; it’s fun; it just turned 50, and who can forget the Time Warp?
But for many people over the last half century, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is much more than a movie.
“I was in Cleveland, Ohio (in August) and at least three people told me as they stood before me, ‘I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t seen this film,”’ said Nell Campbell who played Columbia in both the stage version and the film. She will be in Augusta at the Miller Theater on Oct. 14 for a special 50th anniversary presentation of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
She will answer questions and give some behind-the-scenes info during her appearance.
The movie created its own community, which has given people a place to discover they aren’t alone in this world, and whenever Campbell meets fans of the film, she’s aware of this impact and the legacy It’s left.
“Rocky Horror” first appeared in June 1973 as a stage play in a theater “attic,” Campbell said, officially it was the “upstairs” of London’s Royal Court Theatre.
The movie was released in August 1975 in the U.K. and in September 1975 in the U.S.
With obvious nods to “Frankenstein,” the film also pays tribute to B-horror movies from the 1930s to 1960s such as “King Kong,” “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and “The Invisible Man.”
“Rocky Horror” features a newly engaged couple who after getting caught in a storm end up at the home of a transvestite, alien scientist who unveils his creation – a muscle man named Rocky.
The stage version was a big success. It moved from the attic to other theaters in London before closing in 1980. The film wasn’t a box office smash. Campbell called it a “slow burn.”
It developed a following and midnight showings of the movie complete with rice, newspaper, toilet paper and water guns began popping up about seven months after its U.S. release. For the Miller Theater version, however, only approved props are allowed.
And 50 years later, enthusiastic crowds show up to yell at the film at prescribed times and do the “Time Warp” again.
Campbell has met three generations of families who are fans.
What Campbell enjoys is meeting the people who’ve been impacted by the film’s legacy.
“I’m just so grateful to have been cast in a film that has meant so much to so many people in such an important way. It’s not like the joy I get from “The Sound of Music,’” which didn’t open my eyes to another way of living and help me feel included in life and get me out of my bedroom and off my computer, but that‘s what ‘Rocky Horror’ does to people. It liberates and makes people feel part of a community and realize they are not alone in the world,” she said.
After seeing the movie, some have found their home in the LGBTQ community, but others, who don’t feel they fit other places, can find themselves somewhere in the film and realize they aren’t alone either.
Campbell’s career hasn’t just been confined to “Rocky Horror” even though it’s the role people are familiar with. She ran a nightclub in the 1980s and 1990s and currently performs a one-woman show calls “All’s Nell that Ends Nell.”
And 50 years later, if people still connect her to Columbia, she’s fine with it.
“It’s such a joyous film. It’s helped so many, changed so many people’s lives. I’m hugely proud of it, and I don’t mind at all if I’m associated with it,” she said.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years. She’s won multiple Georgia Press Association awards, is the recipient of the 2018 Greater Augusta Arts Council’s media award and was named Augusta Magazine’s best local writer in 2024 and 2025. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
