Alice Cooper With Famous People Through The Years.

Alice Cooper has been well-known since the late 1960s and he seems to have been friends with people from all corners of the entertainment world.

Here are just a few...

Alice Cooper with John Lennon and May Pang

Alice Cooper having a giggle with Andy Warhol

In 1973 Salvador Dalí created a portrait of Alice Cooper’s brain using chocolate éclairs, ants, diamonds and early holographic technology. Here, the notorious shock-rocker remembers his eccentric encounter with art’s surrealist king

Taken from the S/S18 issue of Another Man:

April 1973. Even by the louche standards of the St Regis Hotel – a deluxe 1904 Beaux-Arts bolthole in midtown Manhattan frequented by Marlene Dietrich, Ernest Hemingway and John Lennon – it was quite an entrance. “All of a sudden these five androgynous nymphs in pink chiffon floated in,” says Alice Cooper, recalling his first encounter with Salvador Dalí in the hotel’s King Cole Bar. “They were followed by Gala (Dalí’s wife) who was dressed in a man’s tuxedo, top hat and tails, and carrying a silver cane. Then came Dalí. He was wearing a giraffe-skin vest, gold Aladdin shoes, a blue velvet jacket and sparkly purple socks given to him by Elvis.” Having announced his presence with a syllable-stretching cry of “The Da-lí… is… he-re!”, the artist requested a round of ‘Scorpion’ cocktails for his guests: rum, gin and brandy served in a conch shell, topped with an orchid. He then ordered himself a glass of hot water. Taking a jar of honey from his pocket and setting the glass on a pedestal, Dalí began pouring the liquid into the glass, dramatically raising it higher so that it formed globules on the surface. Cutting the stream with a pair of scissors, he then raised his arms in a dramatic flourish, prompting a round of applause from his acolytes. “Me and my manager looked at each other in amazement,” says Cooper. “I realised at that point that everything was about Dalí. The world revolved around him. I wasn’t meeting him. I was entering his orbit.”

So began one of the strangest and most fascinating artistic encounters of the 20th century. In 1973 both Cooper and Dalí – aged 25 and 69 respectively – were at the height of their powers. Now seen as the genial grandfather of shock-rock, at the time Cooper was the world’s most disreputable pop star. A string of seditious-sounding hit singles – most notably School’s Out – had tapped into a groundswell of teen disaffection that would later mutate into punk. His blood-spattered live show, meanwhile – featuring live snakes, beheaded baby dolls and fake blood, culminating in his nightly decapitation by guillotine – had made him the scourge of the establishment.

“ALL OF A SUDDEN THESE FIVE ANDROGYNOUS NYMPHS IN PINK CHIFFON FLOATED IN. THEY WERE FOLLOWED BY GALA WHO WAS DRESSED IN A MAN’S TUXEDO, TOP HAT AND TAILS, AND CARRYING A SILVER CANE. THEN CAME DALÍ. HE WAS WEARING A GIRAFFE-SKIN VEST, GOLD ALADDIN SHOES, A BLUE VELVET JACKET AND SPARKLY PURPLE SOCKS GIVEN TO HIM BY ELVIS” – ALICE COOPER

“His incitement to infanticide and his commercial exploitation of masochism is evidently an attempt to teach our children to find their destiny in hate, not in love,” MP Leo Abse told Parliament the same year, arguing that Cooper should be banned from the UK for promoting “the culture of the concentration camp”.

Dalí, of course, had long been seen as the master of the macabre. The superstar of surrealism, the Spanish artist was a born antagonist who lived by the mantra: “What is important is to spread confusion, not eliminate it.” Seeing Cooper’s success as an opportunity to create fresh outrage, he had hatched a plan to establish the duo as the planet’s presiding kings of weird. But there was one slight problem. When Dalí started to explain his idea of turning Cooper into the world’s first living hologram, to be called First Cylindric Chromo-Hologram Portrait of Alice Cooper’s Brain, his words came out not in English, but in a stream of nonsensical pan-European gobbledygook. “It would be one word in English, one word in French, one word in Italian, one word in Spanish and one in Portuguese,” says Cooper of Dalí’s surrealist Esperanto. “It made no sense whatsoever. You could only understand one-fifth of what he was saying.”

Despite the barrier to communication, Cooper’s heart leapt. As a teenage art major at Cortez High School in Phoenix, Arizona, Dalí’s fantastical paintings – littered with melting clocks, eggs and ants – had spoken to him on an equally unfathomable level. “Dalí was our hero,” he says, recalling the obsession he shared with schoolmate and future Alice Cooper band bass player Dennis Dunaway. “Before The Beatles came along, he was the only thing we had. We would look at his paintings and talk about them for hours. His paintings had a lot of humour in them too. So when we formed our own band it was only natural that we took some of those images – like the crutch – and used them in our performances.”

Alice Cooper with his friend, Groucho Marx

Groucho called Alice ‘Coop,’ the way Groucho had called Gary Cooper “Coop,” and it stuck.

They met while dueting on “Lidia the Tattooed Lady” at a Frank Sinatra birthday party.

They became friends while living in Beverly Hills. Groucho had insomnia and would call Coop at 1 a.m. to hang out.

“He had a chair next to his bed with a six pack of Budweiser, and we would sit and watch old movies. And then pretty soon, after about two movies were over, I’d look over and he’d be in his beret and his cigar and he’d finally go to sleep. I’d put out his cigar, turn out the lights and go home. And the next night, one o’clock in the morning: ‘Hey coop, can’t sleep, come on over.’”

"Hollywood Vampires" circa 1973: John Lennon, Harry Nilsson, Alice Cooper, Micky Dolenz and Mackenzie Phillips (maybe?)

The Hollywood Vampires was a celebrity drinking club formed by Alice Cooper in the 1970s. The hazing to get into the club was to outdrink all the members. Cooper listed himself, Keith Moon, Ringo Starr, Micky Dolenz and Harry Nilsson as the club's principal members: "It was that crowd, every night those same people. Every once in a while John Lennon would come into town or Keith Emerson and they would be honourable members of the night. They still have a plaque there at the Rainbow, where it says 'The Lair of the Hollywood Vampires'.

Although Brian Wilson and Iggy Pop often fraternized with members of the club, it remains unclear if they were formally inducted.

Additional members