Nell Campbell

Nell Campbell, born Laura Elizabeth Campbell on 24 May 1953 in Sydney, Australia, is an actress, singer, and former club owner who has worked across film, stage, television, and recording. She is widely recognized under both her given professional name and her stage name, Little Nell. Her father, Ross Campbell, a writer who contributed a family life column to the Sydney Daily Telegraph, gave her the nickname "Little Nell" after a character in Charles Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop. She grew up alongside three siblings: Sally, who worked as a property master, set designer, and later a fashion designer; Cressida, an artist; and Patrick, a solar engineer at the University of New South Wales who died in 2020. Campbell began dancing at age ten, having taken it up to support her health following a diagnosis of hepatitis A. She attended Abbotsleigh School for Girls in Sydney, working as a waitress to support herself during that time. Until approximately age seventeen she went by Laura E. Campbell, and for a period also used the nickname "Sonny," short for "Sonata."

In the early 1970s Campbell relocated to Britain with her family, at which point she adopted Little Nell as a stage name. She sold clothes at Kensington Market, where her stall was adjacent to that of Freddie Mercury, and also worked as a busker and as a soda jerk in a café. Her tap dancing drew attention during an impromptu audition, leading to her being cast as Columbia in the original stage production of The Rocky Horror Show. She reprised the role in the 1975 film adaptation, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which became the work most closely associated with her career. In 1981 she appeared as Nurse Ansalong in Shock Treatment, the sequel to Rocky Horror Picture Show. Her film credits also include the 1984 BAFTA and Oscar Award-winning drama The Killing Fields, in which she played a character named Beth.

Campbell's recording career began in 1975 when she signed with A&M Records following the release of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Her debut single paired "Stilettos and Lipstick" with "Do the Swim." A second single, "See You Round like a Record" backed with "Dance that Cocktail Latin Way," followed in 1976, as did a third pairing "Fever" with "Do the Swim." In 1978, A&M released a triple extended play titled The Musical World of Little Nell (Aquatic Teenage Sex & Squalor), which collected several of these tracks including "Do the Swim," "Stilettos and Lipstick," and "Dance that Cocktail Latin Way." A reissue pairing "Fever" with "See You Round like a Record" was also released in 1978 and proved to be her final release on A&M. A subsequent single, "Beauty Queen," drawn from the film The Alternative Miss World, appeared on PRE Records in 1980.

On stage, Campbell appeared in the Off-Broadway production You Should Be So Lucky and in 2003 joined the cast of the Broadway musical Nine, her sole Broadway credit. Her television work includes a role as Sandra LeMon in the British series Rock Follies of '77.

Beyond performing, Campbell established herself as a business owner in New York. In 1986 she co-founded the nightclub Nell's on West 14th Street in Manhattan with Keith McNally and Lynn Wagenknecht. In 1995 she opened two New York restaurants, The Kiosk uptown and E&O downtown. Nell's was sold in 1998 to Noel Ashman and actor Chris Noth. The club closed in 2004. Campbell also contributed written work to the now-defunct Talk magazine, authoring regular segments titled "MamaTalks" and "FirstLook" beginning with the December 1999 issue. She has a daughter, Matilda Violet, with former boyfriend and business partner Eamon Roche.