Former Downtown Jersey City Resident, The Late Sal Piro, The Rocky Horror Picture Show Superfan

By Tris McCall

Richard O’Brien, Tim Curry, and Susan Sarandon made the Rocky Horror Picture Show a hoot.

Sal Piro made it a phenomenon.

He did not do it from the screen, or from the director’s chair, or from behind a camera, or from the offices of a movie studio. The Jersey City native did it from the audience. Piro, who died at 71 after a highly unusual and consequential career in show business, spent decades as the president of the Rocky Horror Picture Show Fan Club. In that role, he helped transform fandom from the passive activity it had been into the creative act that it is today — something akin to artistry.