O'Brien was born Richard Timothy Smith in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. He emigrated with his family to Tauranga, New Zealand, at the age of 10, where his accountant father had purchased a sheep farm. He went to … See more

To improve his acting skills, O'Brien took method acting classes, and then joined several stage productions as an actor. In 1970, he went into the touring production of Hair for nine months, and spent another nine month… See more

In a 2009 interview, O'Brien spoke about an ongoing struggle to reconcile cultural gender roles and described himself as transgender or "of a third gender". O'Brien stated, "There is a continuum between male and fe… See more