Rocky Horror changed my life 50 years ago. I’ve been in a time warp ever since

In 1973, I was a 19-year-old hoofer either busking the streets of London in top hat, tails and tap shoes or being the soda jerk at a Knightsbridge cafe, dressing like Ruby Keeler, keeping boredom at bay by tap dancing on tables to 1930s music.

Jim Sharman, another Aussie, arrived at the cafe with actor Richard O’Brien, whose unfinished rock musical based on Frankenstein, Jim had agreed to direct. Jim was explaining that the script needed two more servants as one was not enough for back-up vocals. On seeing me, he turned to Richard and said: “There’s your servant.”

It was my first professional role on the London stage – in the tiny attic of The Royal Court Theatre, the Theatre Upstairs. A three-week rehearsal period to be followed by a three-week run for a play described by O’Brien as a “fun knees-up”. The Rocky Horror Picture Show was the result of a symbiotic, creative, relationship between O’Brien, Sharman, set designer Brian Thomson, musical director Richard Hartley, costume designer Sue Blane and, of course, actor Tim Curry.

The following year, we all gathered in the freezing cold Bray Studios an hour outside London to begin filming The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Fox offered Jim a big budget and all-star cast, but Jim wanted to use the original stage cast, so Fox slashed the budget and gave him less than six weeks to shoot it. The one casting that they insisted on was that Brad and Janet be played by Americans. He flew to Los Angeles and cast Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick.

The film opened to silence. Fox gave it a minimal distribution and it was shelved. But then a man in the publicity department at Fox’s LA office decided to take it off the shelf and have a look. He thought it could work being shown at midnight screenings at the Waverly Theatre, New York City, and sent it over.

The same audience came week after week and began dressing up as the characters. Then they started calling out to the screen – the first one was when Janet puts a newspaper over her head to protect herself from the rain, that was the beginning of the callbacks. Soon after that, they began performing in costume in front of the screen and the “shadow cast” was born. We had no idea about this until we were invited to New York for a one-year celebration of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and there were fishnets galore – lines of sequinned Columbias, Frank-N-Furters and the rest of the cast. It was fabulous.

I think one of the reasons it has become a cult hit is because it is a joyous celebration of all things homosexual, bisexual, transsexual, heterosexual and cross-dressing. The script is witty, there’s not a dud song in it, and it doesn’t take itself seriously. The film has helped sexually liberate great swaths of conservative America.

It took me some time to realise many of the fans were a combination of nerds who stayed in their rooms, unable to express themselves or people struggling with their sexuality. I find it so uplifting to be part of something that has and, 50 years later, continues to liberate so many.

Many fans tell me that they had felt isolated or lonely, even cast out by their families, then discovered The Rocky Horror Picture Show community and found their people. I’ve met so many fans who have met their partners this way and now have a gaggle of mini fans. It brings me so much joy to be part of a film which has had such a positive and profound effect on so many people and continues to this day.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which premiered on August 14, 1975, in the UK and a month later in the US, is still showing somewhere around the world. Nell Campbell played Columbia.