Barry Bostwick has a bone to pick with the hordes of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” fans who scream at his bespectacled face every time it appears in the classic 50-year-old cult film.
“I don’t know why they call me an a****** just because I didn’t fix a flat tire,” said Bostwick, who played Brad in the movie and will be hosting a lively screening of the cult classic on Oct. 30 at the Warner Theatre in Torrington.
The actor said he doesn’t just hear the epithet screamed at Brad in the cinemas, where it’s become a steady theme among the dozens of lines that “Rocky Horror” fans have learned to yell during the movie. “A******” is shouted at him in the streets. His father was once told at a business gathering “Oh, you’re the father of the a******?” All because his character doesn’t go get the spare and do a quick repair job that, incidentally, would mean that the rest of the movie would never happen.
Bostwick is not actually complaining. He’s laughing as he said all this. For one thing, the incessant verbal abuse means he did his job well. The job, as he recalled it, was to be “second banana to a bunch of overripe bananas.”
When newlyweds Brad and Janet find themselves stranded on a dark and stormy night, they are ushered into a haunted mansion/laboratory and all hell breaks loose. “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” which filters parodies of classic Hollywood monster movies through a 1970s sexual liberation and self-empowerment sensibility, has become a modern classic itself.
Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon are Brad and Janet in “Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Photo from 20th Century Fox press materials
Richard O’Brien created “The Rocky Horror Show” as a stage show, which became a huge hit in London and Los Angeles though failed on Broadway. The 1975 movie version was also unsuccessful at first but became legendary throughout midnight screenings at arthouse cinemas. Some of those screenings are still happening. “The Rocky Horror Picture Show 50th Anniversary Spectacular Tour” is a grander version of those events, in which dressing up and screaming at the screen is de rigeur.
In his new memoir “Vagabond,” Tim Curry, who played Frank-N-Furter in both the original stage and film versions of “Rocky Horror,” writes that “Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick were newly cast for the film. Susan and Barry were brilliant at playing the naive babes in the wood while also understanding the irony underlying the premise and the nuances underpinning the absurdity of the whole thing.” In the book, Curry reveals that Steve Martin was among the actors who auditioned for Brad.
Bostwick articulated “the difficulty of being the straight man who anchors the storylines. Susan understood this. You see Janet’s slut side early, the way she eats the candy bar.”
Bostwick said he didn’t have to audition for his role. He was offered it through his agent and knew exactly what he was getting into since he’d already seen the stage version. “I saw Tim Curry do it at the Roxy in L.A. It blew my mind. I couldn’t turn it down.”
1975: Actors Tim Curry, Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon in scene from movie ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ directed by Jim Sharman. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Bostwick began his career in rock bands and musical theater. He toured with The Klowns, a bubblegum pop group endorsed by the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus, and released an album as part of the First National Nothing band. Three years before “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” he starred as Danny Zuko in the first New York production of “Grease.”
“I lived in New York City in the 1960s and ‘70s. You took what came down the street. Back then you could afford to do smaller things. I went to NYU, and they stressed that you can’t be a one-shot pony and should take any job you can.”
Bostwick has been hosting “Rocky Horror” screenings, particularly around Halloween, for three years, but this year is special due to the 50th anniversary. “It began a few years ago as a tour of eight to 10 cities,” Bostwick said. “Now it’s 50-something cities.”
The shows are enhanced by a shadow cast of costumed actors who act out the entire movie while it is being screened. Bostwick has worked with the same shadow cast many times. “Two or three years ago, I figured out that the cast was shifting around, doing different parts, because they wanted to reinvigorate the community.” He said some of his favorite shadow Brads have been female performers. “The best ones are the women who play me. They get nervous because I’m there, but they’re great.”
The live recreation of “Rocky Horror” routines doesn’t end with the professional shadow cast. Many members of the audiences dress up as well, and there’s a costume contest as part of the evening. The event also features Larry Viezel, the head of the official “Rocky Horror” fan club and a producer of the 2016 documentary “Rocky Horror Saved My Life.”
The shadow cast and special guests at the “Rocky Horror Picture Show 50th Anniversary Spectacular Tour,” coming to the Warner in Torrington Oct. 30. (Bryan Lasky)
“Larry Viezel comes out, does a warm-up and holds a virgin ceremony people who haven’t experienced ‘Rocky Horror’ before,” Bostwick said describing the live show. “Then there’s a costume contest. It creates a community mindset for the evening. Then Larry brings me out, I do a few things, and we start the movie (and) the shadow cast comes out.”
Besides touring with the shadow cast screenings, Bostwick has been a special guest at movie and sci-fi conventions, including some which are specific to “Rocky Horror.”
“People are still so enthusiastic about ‘Rocky Horror.’ You’d have thought that it would be a relic, outdated, but its themes are still discussed and legislated for. Communities are in danger. It has themes that apply to politics today,” Bostwick said.
He said the company that produced the movie, 20th Century Fox, “hated that dark ending. They wanted to go back to the Time Warp again,” referencing the mad jumpy dance the enlivens the beginning of the movie. He’s pleased the movie’s creators held firm. “The movie is a cautionary tale, a type of fairy tale.”
Bostwick has referenced his Rocky Horror days as a guest star in episodes of “Glee” and “Cold Case.” The “Glee” episode reunited him with Meatloaf as adults concerned with a student production of “The Rocky Horror Show.”
“I was always curious how you could have two members of the movie involved and not let them sing,” Bostwick said.
Bostwick is still busy as an actor. He appeared in the indie film “Love, Danielle” which screened at the Mystic Film Festival in Connecticut last month.
He says the Warner Theatre, which was built as a movie palace in 1931 and thrived during the golden age Hollywood period which “Rocky Horror” lampoons, sounds ideal for the “Rocky Horror Picture Show 50th Anniversary Spectacular Tour.” When asked if he’s spent much time in Connecticut before, it doesn’t spark any great memories. Then Bostwick called back a few minutes after the interview ended to say, “To answer your question: The Bostwick family settled in Connecticut just before the Revolutionary War. We were Tories and we didn’t believe in the revolution. We’re still trying to live that down.”
Sounds like somebody needs to do the Time Warp again.
Barry Bostwick hosts a screening of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” on Oct. 30 at 7:30 p.m. at the Warner Theatre’s Oneglia Auditorium, 68 Main St., Torrington. $42-$97.50, $189.50 VIP package. warnertheatre.org.
