| Nell Campbell | |
|---|---|
| Born | Laura Elizabeth Campbell May 24, 1953 (1953-05-24) (age 56) Sydney, Australia |
"Little" Nell Campbell (born Laura Elizabeth Campbell; May 24, 1953) is an Australian actress,[1] club owner and singer.[2]
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She was born in Sydney, to Ruth and Ross Campbell, a writer,[2] who called her "Little Nell" (after a character in Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop) in his family life column in the Sydney Daily Telegraph. Campbell has three siblings, two sisters and a brother. The older sister became a set designer, the younger an artist, and her brother became an engineer. She was never called Nell at home and was called Laura E. Campbell until around 17, when she went by the nickname of 'Sonny' (pronounced to rhyme with 'Donny'). She began dancing at the age of ten, after being diagnosed with Hepatitis A, to keep healthy. She attended high school at the Abbotsleigh School for Girls in Sydney, as she worked her way up from a waitress to be part of the cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Campbell decided to use the name "Little Nell" as a stage name after her arrival in Britain in the early 1970s with her family. She sold clothes at Kensington Market; her stall was next to Freddie Mercury's. She also worked as a busker (a street performer) and her tap dancing is often noted as the reason why she was cast as Columbia in the original The Rocky Horror Show. She reprised the role in The Rocky Horror Picture Show,[3] released in 1975, and starred as Nurse Ansalong in the 1981 follow up, Shock Treatment.
After The Rocky Horror Picture Show, she signed a recording contract with A&M Records, producing three singles. “Do the Swim” was a moderate hit in 1976, perhaps helped by a live performance on British television in which she accidentally (and repeatedly) exposed her breasts. She also created a disco version of the classic "Fever" in 1978. A fourth and last single, "Beauty Queen", was released in 1980.
Campbell has also appeared in several stage productions, including the Off-Broadway play You Should Be So Lucky and the Broadway play NINE. She co-starred as Sandra LeMon in the British TV series Rock Follies of '77.
From the mid-1980s to 1998, Campbell owned three nightclubs in New York: Kiosk, E&O, and most famously Nell's. Nell's was sold in 1998, right before she gave birth to daughter Matilda Violet in June 1998 to ex-boyfriend and business partner Eamonn Roche.
Campbell has written several magazine articles, including regular segments called MamaTalks and FirstLook in the now defunct Talk Magazine, starting in the December 1999 issue. She returned to Australia after selling her Boerum Hill house in Brooklyn in December 2005, and is now retired and living with her daughter in the Northern Suburbs of Sydney.
Singles / EPs
Guest vocals
Soundtracks & Cast Recordings
stock | retire | vm
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