Nell Campbell

Laura Elizabeth Campbell (born 24 May 1953), better known as Nell Campbell or by her stage name Little Nell, is an Australian actress, singer, and former club owner. She is best known for her role as Columbia in the 1975 film The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and the original stage play from which it was adapted. Campbell released her EP, The Musical World of Little Nell (Aquatic Teenage Sex & Squalor), through A&M Records in 1978. She appeared as Nurse Ansalong in the 1981 film Shock Treatment. Campbell was born in Sydney, to Ruth and Ross Campbell. Ross, a writer, referred to her as "Little Nell" (after a character in Charles Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop) in his family life column in the Sydney Daily Telegraph. She grew up with three siblings: Sally, Patrick, and Cressida. Elder sister Sally was a property master, a set designer, and (subsequently) a fashion designer; younger sister Cressida Campbell is an artist; elder brother Patrick (who died in 2020) was a solar engineer at the University of New South Wales. Nell began dancing when she was 10, in order to remain healthy following being diagnosed with hepatitis A. She was called Laura E. Campbell until the age of about 17, when she went by the nickname "Sonny" (pronounced to rhyme with "Donny"), short for "Sonata". She attended high school at Abbotsleigh School for Girls in Sydney, supporting herself as a waitress. 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.[citation needed] She also worked as a busker and as a soda jerk in a café, where her tap dancing is often noted as the reason why she was cast as Columbia in the original production of The Rocky Horror Show following an impromptu audition. She reprised the role in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, released in 1975, and starred as Nurse Ansalong in the 1981 sequel, Shock Treatment.