Oh lord, I have become too old for The Rocky Horror Picture Show. We watched it on DVD recently and didn’t finish it. That might be because I was bone-tired from a screenplay deadline (ten or so in a row of those 4 AM days…). But I think it was because it’s a 33-year-old movie, and it shows. And I just couldn’t get past that.
But between September 1978 and May 1979, I bet I went to midnight showings of Rocky Horror at the Biograph in Chicago at least 20 times. Maybe more…
I was a freshman at Northwestern University, a thoroughly miserable experience made bearable by the friendship of Sudi Khosropur. She was awesome — and we bonded over trash TV, Rocky Horror and a mutual crush on Tim Curry. Very often on a Friday or Saturday night, we’d get dressed up in full Rocky Horror audience participation splendor and take the El down to the Biograph. I wore a black leotard, an unbuttoned white man’s shirt, a black bow tie, fishnet stockings, boots, and a black fedora. Sudi wore fishnets and heels and short skirts. We’d join the line of hundreds of people waiting to get into the midnight show. People had beer and boom boxes playing the music. We did the Time Warp out on Lincoln Ave. more times than I can remember.
And then we were in, and seated, and the crowd would buzz with adrenaline like a jet engine… and then the movie would start. And we’d yell the lines, throw the rice, hold up the newspapers, squirt the water, throw the confetti and the cards… we did it all. It was fantastic.
Tim Curry had a career as a rock musician, along with his stage and screen career, and I had all three of his albums. So you may imagine our excitement when he came through Chicago on tour. He played at the Park West. You had to be 21 to get in. We were 18. But we were determined…and not just to see the show. Sudi, who had way more guts than I did, called the venue the afternoon of the show, when we knew the band would be loading in and sound-checking, and asked for Tim Curry. She got his manager, and she told the manager that we wanted to take Tim Curry to dinner after the show.
The manager said no very nicely, as I recall.
So off we went to the show. This was in the days before the obsessive checking of ID’s, so you just had to have enough brass to act as if. I looked about 16, but I was good at appearing absolutely comfortable — and Sudi looked 21 and was very good at distracting the guy at the door while I breezed through.
We had a great time at the show, and we got to meet Tim Curry. I was appalled to see a whole contingent of people at the meet-and-greet who were dressed up in RH gear… it seemed so tacky. Sudi told Tim Curry how much she had enjoyed his performance as William Shakespeare. She got the best smile of the night.
And then the two of us went out for a 2 AM breakfast and splurged on steak and eggs. That was fantastic too.
I left Northwestern at the end of that year. And Rocky Horror was never the same for me again.
Sudi, if you’re out there, never mind about the last time we saw each other when you probably thought I was too fucking weird for words. I would love to hear from you.
I loved this story and especially the photo. The way it is washed out makes it look like you are glowing from the inside with some kind of angelic light.
With any luck, your friend will do a search on herself one day and find this post. I had a college friend get in touch not long ago. I had mentioned her in a blog post, which she said was the #1 hit on Google for her name. The power of juice!
Where on Lincoln Avenue was the theater? When I was working for the startup I would stay in the office/apartment across the street from the zoo. Although I never went there in that time frame, I liked being a block from Second City and I logged a little stool time at the Old Town Ale House. That’s the worst part of not going back to Chicago and that neighborhood regularly. I had just gotten on a first name basis with the bartenders and barflies. It’s nice to walk into a bar for the first time in two months and have people greet you by name. I do love Chicago!
The Biograph is just a little north of the big intersection of Lincoln, Halsted and Fullerton.
So call me hokey, but you’ve made me think of the theme song of Cheers: Where everybody knows your name / And they’re always glad you came. I think it’s true, don’t you? It’s good to be in a place where people know your name.
Absolutely, it is quite pleasant. I think Chicago is the place with the most density of nice people I’ve ever been, including Lafayette with all the gregarious Cajuns. We lived in Evanston for exactly one year, and after four years in this neighborhood I know fewer neighbors here than I did in Evanston.
If the weather was better, we never would have left. I miss getting those free trips back to the city.