American musician, actor, and rock ‘n roll ‘ icon of the ’70s who performed weird stage effects and wore flamboyant makeup during his rock concerts. Cooper rose in the pop charts from 1971 with hits like “School’s Out” and “No More Mr. Nice Guy.” Cooper helped to define a new hard rock sound with psycho-drama vaudeville productions. Dancing around on stage in black mascara, black leather and lace with a boa constrictor snake, he delighted his young teenage audience. His worldwide tours during the ’70s had great popular appeal as he conducted mock lynching and fake beheadings with a guillotine on his stage. Cooper would influence many heavy-metal bands to perform the same kind of shtick on audiences around the world.
Cooper was the son of a Detroit, Michigan preacher. The family moved to Phoenix, Arizona when he was ten years old. In the late ’60s, Cooper organized a rock ‘n roll band in Phoenix, and left for Los Angeles to find a recording contract in the late ’60s. After a session with a Ouija board, he changed his name to Alice Cooper, declaring a belief that he was a reincarnated 17th-century witch. In 1970, at 21, his band scored a big hit with the teenage hard rock song “Eighteen.”
The original Alice Cooper Band split up in 1974 tired of the on-stage antics. Cooper continued to perform with new band members in 1975 but record sales began to slump. His “bad boy” rock ‘n roll image changed as he played golf with mainstream celebrity friends. After a self-imposed hiatus during the disco years of rock in the late 70s and early 80s, Cooper tried a comeback. In 1986, at the age of 40, he released an album and went on tour. He appeared in a couple of movies, most notably as Freddy Krueger’s stepfather in “Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare,” 1991.
Cooper lives in a Navaho house in Scottsdale, Arizona with his wife Sheryl, and his two children, daughter Calico Zane and son Dashiell Vincent. In 1991, he had been happily married to his wife for 15 years.
Alcoholism has been a battle in Cooper’s life since his years on stage. He would brag on his ability to daily drink a case of Budweiser beer and a fifth of whiskey. In December 1977, his wife, Sheryl, committed him to the New York State Hospital for alcoholism. His rehabilitation was short-lived when he went back in 1980 for his second detox treatment. In the ’90s, Cooper remains clean, sober and amazed that he survived the many excesses of a rock-star lifestyle.
Link to Wikipedia biography