This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
If you catch an annual Halloween screening of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" at Salt Lake City's Tower Theatre, you'll see one of the most popular cult movies of all time, a cast of costumed performers cavorting onstage and rowdy audience members tossing rice in the air.
And at the front of the theater near the stage, you'll find a woman with close-cropped hair, a microphone and a black leather jacket adorned with handcuffs and filthy words, shouting back at the screen.
She is Susan Steffee, and she's almost as much of a fixture at the Tower as the popcorn machine. This month marks Steffee's 20th year emceeing Salt Lake City screenings of "Rocky Horror," and, amazingly, she's not sick of the gig.
"As far as I know, I've been doing it longer than anybody," says the 35-year-old state-government worker, who tries to complement the live performers mimicking the action onscreen. "It's still surprisingly fun to me. I look forward to it every year."
"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" is a 1975 movie musical parody about a young couple (Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon) who stumble across a spooky castle populated by transvestite Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry) and a gathering of outlandish guests. A flop when first released, it became a midnight-movie hit in New York City before spreading across the country in the late 1970s. "Rocky Horror" has since grossed almost $140 million and is considered the longest-running movie ever.
Steffee discovered it in 1987, when she went to a midnight screening at the now-defunct Blue Mouse, an art-film theater in downtown Salt Lake City. A junior in high school, she entered the theater to find people yelling obscenities and hurling toast at the screen. Amused, Steffee returned the next night.
Within a month, she had become the show's host, a job she describes as "part cheerleader, part tour guide."
"It was basically me saying, 'Hey, look at me! I'm an idiot!' " she says. "It wasn't like anybody came up to me and said, 'You've got the job.' "
In those days, the Blue Mouse screened "Rocky Horror" every weekend to a group of 30 to 40 regulars. Night after night of audiences throwing stuff took its toll on the theater. A roll of toilet paper somehow wedged between an exposed pipe and the ceiling, where it remained stuck for years. Forgotten hot dogs, lodged between seats or in other crannies, lent the theater a distinctive odor.
After the Blue Mouse closed in 1990, Steffee and others resurrected "Rocky Horror" at the refurbished Tower in 1991. There the movie ran monthly for several years until interest waned and screenings became a Halloween-only event.
As emcee, Steffee tries to get the audience involved while cracking jokes about what's happening onscreen. For example, when a coffin opens to reveal a skeleton, she shouts, "Oh my God, it's [name of recently deceased celebrity]!" Wisecracks are updated each year to reflect current events, which is why she promises a joke this year about Larry Craig, the disgraced Idaho senator. She also falls down a lot.
"There's some physical comedy involved," says the volunteer performer, who once toppled, accidentally, through a flimsy platform on the Tower stage. "I'm trying to be funny."
Steffee has lost count of how many times she's seen "Rocky Horror," although it's well over a thousand, she says. She knows the movie so well she doesn't need to see the screen to do her shtick; sometimes she carries her wireless microphone into the lot behind the Tower to bark her lines while sneaking a smoke.
People have even asked her to do her thing at private viewings of "Rocky Horror." By now, talking back to the film is so instinctive for Steffee that she can't help herself when it comes on.
"It's not even conscious," she says. "I can't just watch the movie [quietly]. I've tried."
Asked to explain the enduring appeal of a silly, low-budget movie that some critics trashed for its cartoonish style, Steffee shrugs. But she notes that the film's once-salacious content - cross-dressing, gay sex, an underwater orgy scene - seems a lot tamer now.
"When I first started doing it, the subject matter was a big deal. And now it isn't really taboo anymore," says Steffee, who thinks people who trash the gleefully low-rent movie are missing the point. "It's not Oscar-worthy. But it's not supposed to be."
If you go
"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" screens tonight and Saturday at midnight, and Wednesday at 8 p.m. and midnight, at the Tower Theatre, 876 E. 900 South, Salt Lake City. Admission is $10. Outside props are not allowed, although the theater will sell prop bags, containing rice, toast and other throwable items, for $3. For more information, call 801-321-0310 or visit http://www.saltlakefilmsociety.org.