She’s Magenta from ‘Rocky Horror’ and a friend to the king. She’s also coming to Tacoma
Shortly after “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” opened in 1975, actor Patricia Quinn became aware of a curious phenomenon occurring in movie houses where it was screening.
“(Co-star and creator) Richard O’Brien and I were in London and people were telling us, ‘They’re dressing up as you and talking back to your film,’ and we thought, ‘What? That’s crazy. What are they talking about?’”
Soon, the pair were on a flight to New York and witnessed the shadow cast (film goers dressing as characters in the film and pantomiming key scenes), the toast, rubber gloves and other rituals that have forever accompanied the film, including at regular screenings in Tacoma.
That New York trip is where Quinn met her first Magenta — the character she plays in the film.
Local audiences will get a chance to see the film and meet Quinn when she appears Saturday at the Pantages Theater in Tacoma for a “Rocky Horror” screening, Q&A and a meet and greet. They might even see a few Magentas there — just not the original.
“I am a fan of the film because I love it,” Quinn said in an interview from her home in England earlier this month. “But I didn’t need to dress up as me. I was me.”
An enduring legacy
In the 50 years since Quinn first performed in the stage version of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and then later in the 1975 film adaptation, her life and career have taken one turn after the other. But always, there has been Rocky.
“It influenced my life,” she said. “Rocky Horror’s been a massive part of it. I’ve had amazing journeys. I’ve had extraordinary experiences with it. It’s nice to be worshiped.”
The Tacoma stop is part of a 48th anniversary tour of the film. It offers a different experience for fans than can be found at comic cons. But whether it’s at those conventions or at screenings, Quinn, 79, is always delighted by the age range of her fans.
“At these comic cons, I meet Magentas,” Quinn said. “8- and 6-year-old children are dressed as me.”
The plot
“Rocky Horror” begins like any other B horror flick. Stranded travelers Brad (Barry Bostwick) and his fiance Janet (Susan Sarandon) show up one rainy night at a dark Gothic mansion. Then, it goes where no movies have gone before.
The home belongs to Dr. Frank-n-Furter, a self-described transvestite from the planet Transexual in the galaxy Transylvania — played by a lascivious Tim Curry.
We quickly meet Magenta and her brother Riff Raff, played by O’Brien, who also composed the stage production’s and film’s original music.
The plot, if you can call it that, revolves around Frank-N-Furter’s experiments, the creation of his hunky creature Rocky, the seduction of “squares” Brad and Janet, an appearance by singer Meatloaf, music and interesting set pieces. Boring, it is not.
Response
Reviews were tepid when the movie opened in the United States.
Film reviewer Roger Ebert labeled it a, “A horror-rock-transvestite-camp-omnisexual-musical parody” that was better suited for the stage than the screen. But Ebert couldn’t have envisioned then the path “Rocky Horror” would take.
The film and stage productions are always playing somewhere, Quinn said.
“It goes to Japan, it goes to Italy, because it never stops,” she said.
That includes at Tacoma’s century-old Blue Mouse Theatre which screens the film every second and fourth Saturday of the month, shadow cast included. The movie and a shadow cast will play Bremerton’s Admiral Theatre Oct. 13.
Beginnings
The stage show opened in 60-seat Royal Court Theatre in 1973.
“Three weeks later, London was on fire with it,” Quinn said, name-dropping the celebrities lined up outside the theater to see it — Mick Jagger, Elliot Gould, David Bowie.
Quinn almost didn’t take the movie part when she learned someone else would be singing her parts. But it’s her red lips that are forever associated with the film’s imagery in the “Science Fiction/Double Feature” opening song.
The film has a mix of British (Curry, Quinn) and American actors (Sarandon, Bostwick, Meat Loaf). Australian director Jim Sharman helmed the project.
Distributor 20th Century Fox purportedly wanted American actors in some of the key roles, but Quinn thinks the Anglo-American mix naturally developed. The film’s producers were British and American. Curry and Meat Loaf had both performed in the stage version of “Rocky” in Los Angeles before the movie began production.
“I’ve never thought about it, being English and American,” Quinn said. “Because we’re not English. We’re from Transylvania.”
Beyond Rocky
Shortly after “Rocky Horror”, Quinn was cast in the BBC series “I, Claudius.”
Quinn exists in several fan universes. She’s acted in the long-running sci-fi series “Doctor Who” and in Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life” where she played Mrs. Williams, the headmaster’s wife, who gives their students a simultaneous explicit and absurdly perfunctory tutorial on sex.
Quinn is Irish, born in Belfast where her father was a bookie. Her grandfather was a construction engineer for the Titanic.
“He was going to join the crew but when they got to Southampton, they had enough crew,” Quinn said.
Royal fan
Quinn is still getting used to King Charles’ accession to the throne. She’s known him for years but he’s apparently never seen “Rocky Horror.”
“He’s a fan of me, not of it,” Quinn said.
Quinn said Charles was instrumental in getting her late husband, actor Robert Stephens, a knighthood.
“So hence Robert became Sir Robert Stephens and I became Lady Stevens,” she said.
Stephens had urged Charles to see the stage version of “Rocky Horror” when Quinn was reviving her role in it. He declined.
“So then when I saw Charles he said, ‘Robert asked me to go see you, Pat. I’m frightfully sorry but I just thought I couldn’t turn up in suspenders and garters’. The fist thing I said was, ‘You could have come as Brad the nerd.’”
Charles quickly changed the subject, Quinn said.
If you go
What: “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”
Who: Patricia Quinn
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 30
Where: Pantages Theater
Tickets: $39, $49, $65; VIP meet and greet add on: $100
Movie: Rated R
Information: TacomaArtsLive.org
This story was originally published September 26, 2023 at 12:11 PM.
