This is what I looked like when I arrived around 10pm every Saturday night at Rocky Horror before getting dressed in my costume to perform.
We first performed at The Screen On Baker Street, which held only about 100 people, in May 1987. I say 'performed'. It was just three of us who got up and did a few scenes. I didn't even really know what I was doing. I'd got a Columbia costume together in a week made up of things I'd found in Camden Market that were good enough. The top hat was a black one that I'd covered in gold glitter. It was a rubbish costume, but no one cared then.
By the time we'd moved onto The Prince Charles Cinema 4 years later, we were a very slick outfit with a full cast, stage hands, a spotlight operator and I was playing Frank. We'd updated our costumes several times, got better wigs, made better props. Our pre-show performances had got more elaborate. Richard O’Brien opened for us once. It was a wild ride. My last show was in 1992.
The first time I'd heard of The Rocky Horror Picture Show was when I watched the film Fame when I was 12. The scene at the 8th Street Playhouse is only a few minutes long, but I was hooked. I told my mother about it - I didn't know the name of the film, but I told her about how they'd got up on stage and performed during the film. It took me another year to find out the name of the film and another until I was able to see it for the first time. All I knew about it was what I'd seen in Fame. I had no idea what it was about.
Seeing Tim Curry as Frank N Furter throwing off his cape was a kind of religious experience.
Rocky Horror was far more than ‘a film’ for me. It was more than ‘putting on a show’ or ‘performing’. It was ‘an identity’. It was ‘my family’. It was 'my community'. It was 'my lifestyle'. It was 'me'.
Like all fandoms, The Rocky Horror fandom has its own rules (eg shadowcasts should never be paid for performing), its own rituals (attending a screening of a film is filled with rituals from start to finish, from the ‘Virgin Sacrifice’ to the audience ‘script’ to dancing the Time Warp to the use of rice and water pistols), its own mantras (‘Don’t Dream It, Be It’), its own Gods and Goddesses (the actors in the film), its own Saints (Dori Hartley, the first person ever to dress up at the film), its own priests and priestesses (the superfans), its own Pope (Sal Piro, the original fan club president, the guy on stage in that Fame clip).
I went to see Rocky at the 8th Street Playhouse in June 1987. 8th Street was like the Vatican for us. I signed up for the fan club when I was there and started corresponding with the fan club president- the Pope- Sal Piro. I told him about my plans for Rocky in London. He always replied. He’d send me photos or a badge once in a while. A couple years later, he wrote to me to tell me he was coming to London and asked if I’d be interested in meeting up. YES!!!!! OF COURSE!!!
I still remember the answering machine message he left for me when he arrived in London. ‘Hi, Gia, this is Sal Piro. I’m staying at the Gresham Hotel.’ He just sounded so New York!
We met up for coffee in Soho and talked and talked. We talked about Rocky. We talked about life. He told me loads of stories about himself. This was the guy who started this whole Rocky Horror thing and kept it going. Without him, it would have slipped off into obscurity. He was talking to me. To dorky teenage weirdo ME. He made me feel special and interesting. I felt like he believed in me. He knew I could do all the things I’d talked about. He had faith in me. He was there urging me on, supporting me when I really, really needed it.
He had to go meet another friend after our coffee, but asked me to walk with him. We continued talking the whole way. He made me feel like he had been my friend forever. We arrived at Fortum and Masons to meet his friend. We stood around for a bit talking and then he said, “Before my friend arrives, I think I should tell you… It’s Richard O’Brien. Just stay calm.” A few minutes later Sal introduced me to a God.
The last time I saw Sal was at the 40th Anniversary Convention in 2015. I hadn’t seen him since my final performance in 1992. I went up to him to say hello and told him that we’d met in London 25 years previously. He remembered me!! He remembered me. I told him how much he meant to me. He just laughed it off. He was so humble.
Sal died a few days ago. Everyone in Rocky fandom has been sharing their stories about him. This is mine. He was kind of everyone’s dad, mum, big brother, friend exactly when they needed it in their lives. He made us feel special.
We will miss you, Sal.
A fine tribute.
The best tribute to be remembered for making a difference to others.