Anecdotes

Wrote The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) in six months.

When writing The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), he based the character Frank-N-Furter on Alice Cooper. In his original handwritten notes (published in the 1979 play book The Rocky Horror Scrapbook), he described Frank-N-Furter as an "Alice Cooper type Frankenstein." (The "Dr." was added for the film.)

On November 25, 2004, a life-size bronze statue of Richard O'Brien in his Riff Raff space suit was unveiled in Hamilton, New Zealand, where O'Brien grew up after moving from England. Commissioned jointly by a local theatre group and the Hamilton City Council, the statue stands on the site of the old Embassy Cinema, where O'Brien once watched science-fiction double features.

Still makes up songs on the spur of the moment, to entertain his friends.

Took the last name O'Brien after his grandmother.

Met his close friend, Patricia Quinn in 1972.

Emigrated with his parents to New Zealand, went to school in Tauranga on the North Island's east coast, and moved to Hamilton for a while for work when he left school, before returning to the UK.

Son, with Jane Moss, Joshua (b. 1983). Daughter, with Jane Moss, Amelia (b. 1989).

Son, with Kimi Wong, Linus (b. May 1, 1972).

Born on exactly the same date as fellow singer Aretha Franklin.