Cooper's legendary stage show involves live snakes, straight jackets, corpses, and other horror movie-styled props - not to mention fog machines and dramatic lighting, of course. Stage shows concluded with Cooper's "public execution" by various means, including electric chair, gallows, and guillotine.
His real name is Vincent Furnier. Alice Cooper was the name of the band, but the name became so associated with the lead singer that he took it.
The band spread the rumor that "Alice Cooper" was the name of a girl who was accused of being a witch in the 1600s, saying she contacted them through a Ouija board. Furnier later explained that he made it up when he was thinking of a sweet, innocent-sounding name that would contrast against their shocking stage show.
Furnier thinks of Alice Cooper as a character, totally separate from himself, who views the world in a skewed, pessimistic way. Furnier adopts Alice's character both while writing songs and performing onstage.
Alice is an avid golfer. He has done commercials for Calloway clubs, making him the first rock star to endorse a golf product. He's pretty good, too. Darius Rucker, also a big golfer, said: "Alice Cooper is the most boring golfer I've ever played with. He's down the middle and on the green all day long."
In the '70s Alice moved his base of operations to Los Angeles from New York in part because he could do more golfing in California.
He ran for governor of Arizona in 1988.
Explaining his dual personality, Cooper said: "I can live my life and be Alice Cooper the golfer of the restaurateur or the philanthropist. If you want to see the other Alice, you have to go see the show." His 2007 autobiography is called
Alice Cooper, Golf Monster.
Alice appears in the 1992 movie
Wayne's World, where he performs "
Feed My Frankenstein." Wayne and Garth go backstage to meet him, where he becomes the subject of their "we're not worthy" bit.
At a Toronto rock festival in 1969 while opening for
John Lennon and
The Doors, a fan threw a chicken on the stage. Cooper threw the chicken back into the audience, which tore it apart. The crowd loved it, and Cooper's shows became more theatrical to play up the image.
Cooper was the guest star on a Halloween episode of
The Muppet Show - he claims Miss Piggy flirted with him. Alice also appears on an episode of
That '70s show where he plays Dungeons and Dragons with the radio host and some other characters from the show.
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In 2001 the International Horror Guild gave him a living legend award.
He set a 24-mile cross-country running record in high school.
Cooper was in the Friars Club, where Frank Sinatra, Johnny Carson and many other popular entertainers were members. He doesn't seem like a good fit for this venerable institution, but their high-profile members understood his act and liked having him around.
"They all wore tuxedos, but Alice wore a leather jacket,"
Alice Cooper @75 author
Gary Graff told Songfacts. "They loved him and they loved what he did."
In the early '80s, he worked on a project with Joe Perry from Aerosmith. When
Aerosmith got back together in 1984, it was abandoned.
When he was a kid, his family was poor and there were very few presents. Now, Cooper goes crazy on Christmas, buying lots of gifts for his family.
He wrote sports and feature articles for his school under the pseudonym "Muscles McNasal."
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Cooper explained in the January, 2009 issue of
Esquire: "When I moved to L.A. with this little wimpy garage band, the first people we met were the Doors. Then we met
Jimi Hendrix,
Janis Joplin. All of the people who died of excess were our big brothers and sisters. So I said to myself: How do you become a legend and enjoy it? The answer is to create a character as legendary as those guys and leave that character on the stage."
In 1972, with sales slow for an upcoming show in London, Cooper's management arranged to have a large truck "stall" in the middle of Piccadilly Square, baring a huge picture of Alice in the buff, save his boa constrictor. It attracted quite a crowd, generated lots of publicity, and boosted ticket sales.
In an autobiography from the '70s Alice said that his first true sexual completion with a young lady took place in a homemade coffin that had a glass lid.
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Cooper put up $28,000 for the restoration of the second "O" in the HOLLYWOOD sign in 1978. He dedicated it to the memory of Groucho Marx.
Cooper took the rock horror genre to new depths, but he was always very careful to keep religion out of it, so no implied Satanism with his snakes and blood. Said Cooper: "Religion is something I don't even want to mess with, because I am really afraid of the clouds opening up and my being struck by lightning."
Snakes are a big part of Cooper's act, but he was terrified of them at first. He trained himself to overcome his fear and learned how to handle them (keep them well-fed!). Traveling with snakes can cause problems; in 1975, one of Alice's pet snakes, Cachina, escaped down a toilet after Cooper left it in the bathtub of his hotel room in Knoxville. To replace the 14-pound Cachina, Cooper bought a 45-pound constrictor and named her Yvonne, who toured with him as a living costume.
In the 1970's, Cooper appeared in anti-drug public service announcements. Later, in 1986, he went on tour with Megadeth as his opening act. Observing
Megadeth's rampant drug and alcohol consumption, Cooper approached the band members and helped them reduce their intake. Cooper's also privately helped others who rocked a bit too hard over the years, and won the Stevie Ray Vaughn Award in 2008 for his selfless efforts.
Cooper is a born-again Christian, and believes in the devil enough to have genuine supernatural fear. He's never taken a satanist stance, and warns other bands against it.
Before adopting the name "Alice Cooper," Furnier's band was called "The Nazz." Upon learning that Todd Rundgren had a band named Nazz, Furnier's Nazz changed their name to Alice Cooper.
Cooper owns a restaurant in Phoenix called Cooper'stown. The motto: "Where jocks and rock meet."
In 2000, Cooper boasted an unusual voicemail recording: Dan Castellanata performing the voice of Simpson's character Barney Gumble. Barney explains that Alice is currently out enjoying a night at Moe's Tavern. Leave a message [insert belch here].
In 1973, avant-garde artist Salvadore Dali turned Alice Cooper's likeness into the world's first 3D holographic sculpture.
During Alice Cooper's heyday he was recording at a studio in Toronto, Canada, and he stayed across the street from a Mrs. Reeves. She had to leave her son "Kee" unattended at home for up to three hours each day while she worked, so Alice offered to look after the boy across the street at the studio. "Kee" grew up to become the actor Keanu Reeves.
After Alice Cooper (the band) bombed a show in the first 10 minutes, music manager Shep Gordon approached them and arranged an audition with Frank Zappa at his house at 7 o'clock. They misinterpreted this as 7 in the morning and woke him up; nevertheless being woken up by a band willing to play that particular brand of psychedelic rock early in the morning impressed Zappa and he signed them to his label for a three-album deal.
Frank Zappa signed the Alice Cooper Band to his record label in 1968. Shortly after they signed the deal, Cooper moved into a house just up the hill from Zappa's. The singer's next-door neighbor was Micky Dolenz of The Monkees.
