FEBRUARY 9 • 2023 | 57
album “Detroit Stories” in Royal Oak.
Alice Cooper has acquired a surpris-
ing collection of mentors, collaborators
and admirers over the decades. Early
in his career, he earned the approval of
the members of the Friars Club, most
of them elderly Jewish comedians. They
“got” the ghoulish stage effects that
so shocked others in their age cohort.
George Burns recognized in-performance
beheading as “shtick,” something like a
Vaudeville act he and Gracie had seen by
“the amazing whatever,” who also had a
guillotine and got his head cut off.
But the early dramatic performances
that accompany Alice Cooper songs are
not just shtick. In a curious way, they
forecast his own life story. Alice Cooper
expresses surprise that he has lived long
enough for Alice Cooper @ 75 to appear.
He often says, “By all rights, I should be
dead.”
The brief stage dramas take the form of
tiny morality plays in which the protag-
onist does dangerous or evil deeds, earns
his violent punishment and returns puri-
fied. Alice Cooper in real life indulged in
self-destructive behavior with drink and
cocaine and seemed on a path to an early
death. His wife, Sheryl, filed for divorce
in 1983, only to
move back when he committed to sobri-
ety. They credit his successful sobriety
to his return to Christianity, his love for
Sheryl and his addiction to golf.
Now Graff describes Alice Cooper
as “a Christian Mensch.” Cooper and
Sheryl created Solid Rock Foundation,
which supports charitable endeavors.
Their Solid Rock Centers are dedicated
to showing at-risk youth how to find
another path other than drugs or crime,
as Cooper says, through “music, dance,
self-expression and creativity.”
Alice Cooper @ 75 provides back-
ground on the 28 albums and on dozens
of the performer’s singles; recounts Alice
Cooper’s collaboration with an aston-
ishing list of musicians, artists, actors,
public figures of all sorts; includes movie
stills and lavish photographs of tickets,
publicity ephemera, comic books, public
performances and moments from the
singer’s personal life.
Alice Cooper @ 75 is available on Amazon.
Some images from Graff’s
book Alice Cooper @ 75.