Cosmic Light - The Birth of a Cult Classic
Jim Whittaker
On July 3rd I received a telephone call from a man in Covedale (Cincinnati), Ohio named Jim Hetzer. He said he received a package that he thought was mine, So I made arrangements to go and pickup this mystery package. Arriving at the door I was handed a book and a letter from a man named Jim Hetzer (Kind of weird meeting someone with the same name as you!). The author of the book, "Cosmic Light - The Birth of a Clut Classic" evidentally didn't know that I keep a temporary residence in Park Hills, Kentucky and not in Cincinnati. But anyway... I handed the letter to a friend to read as I drove. It was from and man named Jim Whittaker, he wanted me to review his book on Rocky Horror. While sitting in stopped traffic I picked up the book and headed for the About the Author Section... It said "Jim Whittaker is one of the world's leading authorities on Rocky Horror" That's strange, I thought, in my 6 years in the Rocky Horror community I have met alot of people and I am good with names and I have never heard of him. So I went into this book looking for things unfactual or taken verbatium from other sources. I figured their are only two types of people who could make that claim. Someone who knows the movie extememly well or a fool.


After dinner I went home and began reading. I began to disect this book piece by piece, and in the pieces I found it to be incredible. I have never seen any publication relating to Rocky Horror with this much information. It covers Rocky Horror from Richard O'Brien meeting Jim Sharman, the London play, the Roxy play, the production of the movie, shooting, post-production, the Broadway play, and beyond.


The book contains interviews with Terry Ackland-Snow, Jonathan Adams, Sue Blane, Ishaq Bux, Micheal English, Jules Fisher, Graham Jarvis, Abigale Haness Marshall, Paddy O' Hagan, D'Vaughn Pershing, Peter Robb-King, Bruce Scott, Peter Suschitzky and Ian Whittaker.
This book is packed with interesting tid-bits of information and stories. One such tid-bit is on page 181 which describes Sal Piro as "a young off-broadway actor and former Catholic school teacher." What an interesting class that would have been!


I am very impressed with this book. I think it is a must for every Rocky Horror fan. In my opinion the author, Jim Whittaker's, claim that he is "one of the world's leading authorities on Rocky Horror" is a quite true statement.
Here are some stats on the book;
Total 211 pages
11 Pages of Pictures
Chapter 1: Prologue Richard O'Brien meets Jim Sharman
Chapter 2: The London Play
Chapter 3: The Roxy Play
Chapter 4: Deal for Film, Writing Screenplay and Score
Chapter 5: Preproduction 'A RKO Radio Picture'
Chapter 6: Shooting 'Shivering in the rain'
Chapter 7: Postproduction
Chapter 8: The Broadway Play and Film Publicity
Chapter 9: Release and Initial Midnight Showings
Chapter 10: Epilogue w/casts lists
Bibliography
Photo Credits


I am please to present Jim Whittaker with Cosmo's Factory's
Highest Award for Rocky Horror Excellence.
The Sadie Award

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