Richard O'Brien

Richard O'Brien was born on 25 March 1942 and grew up between Britain and New Zealand. In 1973 he wrote The Rocky Horror Show, a musical stage show that went into continuous production and never stopped. Two years later he co-wrote the screenplay for The Rocky Horror Picture Show with director Jim Sharman and appeared on-screen as Riff Raff, the hunchbacked handyman - the film became a cultural fixture. He followed with Shock Treatment in 1981, playing Dr. Cosmo McKinley, then spent the early 1990s as the host of Channel 4's The Crystal Maze. His screen work ranged from Flash Gordon in 1980 to Spice World, Dark City, and Dungeons & Dragons, and he voiced Lawrence Fletcher across eight years of Phineas and Ferb. In 2011, after decades in the UK, he took dual citizenship with New Zealand and settled in Tauranga - he identifies as third gender and uses he/him pronouns.