Behind the Curtain by Martin Fitzgibbon
Rocky Horror Picture Show is a phenomenon, a film screened weekly in many movie theaters, including Milwaukee’s Oriental, since the late 1970s. The long-running movie was based on a musical that debuted in London’s Royal Court Theatre in 1973. Martin Fitzgibbon was there. He played drums in the band.
Behind the Curtain: My Life and Rocky Horror is his memoir. Fitzgibbon was a working musician in the early ‘70s who got a call for the gig. As he remembers it, Rocky Horror’s cowriter, Richard Hartley, rang him at home saying, “I need a drummer who can play quietly, and you’re the only person I know who can do that.”
Quiet is not a word that comes to mind when thinking about Rocky Horror, but the future of the production hadn’t been written. Fitzgibbon had never played in a musical and had no reason to imagine that Rocky Horror would last more than a few weeks. The irreverent rock musical debuted in the Royal Court’s upper room, not the bigger street level theater. The audience of 63 loved it on opening night, including theater critics who issued appreciative reviews. Rocky Horror was an overnight sensation.
Fitzgibbon was never privy to the conceptualization and creative process behind Rocky Horror but was on hand as the original cast shaped the performance. Rehearsals were a blast, he recalls, and he dispels rumors. Vincent Price was not in the audience on opening night. And the show moved to the soon-demolished Classic Cinema not because the West End’s “stuffy” theaters looked down on the musical, but because it was the only sizable venue that could be booked in time to keep the momentum rolling (and rocking).
“They say timing is important to the success of any endeavor,” Fitzgibbon writes. “1973 was very different than today. With hindsight, it provided the perfect social and creative conditions for the emergence of a show like Rocky.” Times have changed, but the crowds keep coming to see the movie with dialogue memorized and in full costume.
Behind the Curtain: My Life and Rocky Horror is published by Grosvenor House.
Get Behind the Curtain at Amazon here.
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