Residency for Rocky Horror Picture Show

creator
By TOM HUNT - The Dominion Post

2 August 2010

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-

times/news/3980786/Residency-for-Rocky-

Horror-Picture-Show-creator/

A SWEET TRANSVESTITE: The Rocky Horror

Picture Show's Richard O'Brien.
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The Government has intervened to allow

Riff Raff into the country.

Immigration adviser Dion Smart has

confirmed his client – The Rocky Horror

Picture Show creator Richard O'Brien –

was almost certainly getting New Zealand

residency after Associate Immigration

Minister Kate Wilkinson pledged to make

an exception to the usual criteria.

Speaking from his London home, O'Brien

said he would prefer to have his

citizenship – another step up the ladder

to becoming an official New Zealander –

"rubber-stamped".

"I don't want anybody to think I'm

grandstanding. All I wanted to do is

belong. It's always been home. I feel a

big swell of love and generosity of

spirit all around me in New Zealand. I'm

a peculiar-looking person. I'm a trannie

– but I'm their trannie."

Ms Wilkinson was unable to comment on

individual cases, but a spokesman said it

was not uncommon for her to intervene in

"special circumstances".

Mr Smart said O'Brien, 68, would still

have to pass police and health checks,

but Ms Wilkinson had said she would make

exceptions on requirements for him to be

55 or under and have a job offer in New

Zealand.

"It's not completely unusual but she is

using her power as a minister to

recognise the case is exceptional."

O'Brien, who lives in London, has been

back to New Zealand regularly since the

1960s and wants to eventually retire to

Katikati, north of Tauranga, where he has

a 2 1/2-acre property. Two of his

siblings live in Tauranga and his son

lives in Wellington and is also applying

for residency.

Born in Britain, O'Brien came to New

Zealand as a 10-year-old with his family

in 1952. He spent his teenage years and

early 20s in Hamilton and Tauranga. He

left in 1964 for London.

In 2004, he was honoured with a statue in

Hamilton of his Rocky Horror character,

the creepy butler Riff Raff, erected on

the site of the barber shop where he

worked before leaving for Britain.

Mr Smart said O'Brien's residency

application should be processed in about

a month, at which point his application

for citizenship would be lodged.

Residency meant he could live in New

Zealand but citizenship was needed to get

a New Zealand passport and could be

granted after five years. However,

obtaining a passport was not his

motivation, Mr Smart said.

O'Brien would retain a house in London

and continue theatrical commitments in

Europe.

An unofficial request had been made to

Internal Affairs Minister Nathan Guy for

an exception to citizenship criteria that

applicants must have been a permanent

resident here for at least five years. A

spokesman said no official application

had been made and no consideration given

to the issue yet.

O'Brien, who has been asked to narrate a

New Zealand tour of The Rocky Horror

Picture Show in October, visited Katikati

last year. "Please don't think I take any

of this for granted. I think all of this

is so wonderful."