Sal Piro, a “Rocky Horror Picture Show” The role-playing super fan and hero of the upcoming biopic is dead. He was 71 years old.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show Fan Club, which Piro founded in 1977, announced his death on Twitter on Sunday. They didn’t give a reason.
“It’s with deep sadness that we announce the passing of Sal Piro, founder and longtime president of The Rocky Horror Picture Show Fan Club,” the club said in a statement. statement read out. “Sal has been the de facto face of the Rocky Horror fandom for a long time. He can be greatly missed.”
Piro served as president of the club until his death. An early fan of the 1975 film, Piro, together with many other young fans, shouted hilarious comments at nightly screenings of the film in Recent York, which became a regular event at the previous Waverly Theater – now the IFC Center – in Greenwich Village.
He helped develop a theatrical production where audiences could recreate a cult classic on a big screen.
“All of us lived for Friday and Saturday nights,” Piro wrote in his 1990 memoir, Creatures of the Night: The Rocky Horror Picture Show Experience.
“We met at 8pm to be certain we were first in line and took our regular seats. The atmosphere outside the theater was as electrifying as inside. We sang songs, we warped time (we once stopped traffic on Sixth Avenue while dancing), we exchanged questions… All of us shared this devotion to the film as we gathered outside in eager anticipation for midnight,” he continued.
Piro added in his memoir that he and his friend music director Marc Shaiman sat next to one another for the subsequent 75 times when Piro went to see the film, contributing “ad lib lines that became part of the entire spectacular event.” “
Shaiman, who became the musical composer of “Hairspray”, recalls Piro in long tribute on Instagram.
“We didn’t know what we were infusing, we just had a great time and were creative in essentially the most free way,” he wrote. “Writing the right lines between the dialogues within the movie, creating the props, just plain FUN – it was a real joy fest.
“Over the subsequent 12 months, I attended about 70 screenings of the film, but for Sal, it became his life’s work and keenness. He became president of the fan club and spent the subsequent 40 years being the Rocky Horror Guru for hundreds of thousands of fans,” added Shaiman.
In 1981, Piro had a minor role within the Rocky Horror sequel Shock Treatment. He also appeared as himself in an episode of the 1980 TV series “Fame”.
Screenwriter Mark Loughlin is currently within the early stages turning Piro’s memories into a movie.
It is predicted to happen around 1976 and follow Piro and his friend, Dori Hartley, who was the primary to decorate up as Frank N. Furter.