Last year, I was fortunate enough to spend some time with the veteran record and film producer Lou Adler. The 92-year-old has enjoyed a singular career that included producing Carole King and directing a Cheech & Chong movie, but there was one anecdote he shared that made his face light up more than any of the other major stars he could casually name-drop. In 1972, he recalled, he visited a tiny theatre in London and saw a madcap production that blended schlocky B-movie horror and Fifties rock’n’roll. “Can you imagine,” he asked me, still a little awestruck, “Seeing Tim Curry for the first time?”

The show, of course, was Rocky Horror, which Adler immediately optioned and brought to Hollywood, where it was adapted into The Rocky Horror Picture Show three years later. The film became a runaway hit, grossing over $170 million worldwide (having cost 1/100th of that) and going on to have the longest-running theatrical release in movie history.

It also launched Curry, who has died at the age of 80, to international fame. The success of Rocky Horror meant that many more people around the world got to experience the unfettered joy of laying eyes on the Cheshire-born actor with the Cheshire cat grin for the very first time.

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