Article Database

I'm Just a Natural Villain

Alice and Richard had the following conversation a couple of years ago. It was after a regular interview and was mainly the two of them talking about a common interest — magic and the theater — than an interview. We thought you would find it interesting — especially since some of their ideas are just starting to happen today. — Ed.

Richard: Rock performers have to understand that the rock business is show business.

Alice: They have to understand that they have to make the audience say, 'Hey, I want to see them again.' I want to SEE them again. When you saw Betty Grable or Erroll Flynn, you wanted to see them again.

Richard: I think a lot of present per­formers who are sort of carrying on from 'the 60's are going to be eliminated.

Alice: Well, that is the point, you know. If you can't flow with it, you are just going to get far behind or be left behind.

Richard: The music is not the only thing but...

Alice: The music has got to be better than ever. As far as I'm concerned when I listen to one of my albums — first of all that album has got to sit on its own. Pretend there is no tv or radio, just pick up the album and put it on — would you then say, 'Gee I want to hear that again'. Or 'I want to have some friends over to listen to it because I think it's that good.'? I mean that's what a kid has to think when they hear an album. That's what I think.

Richard: About things like magic and the art of illusion and fantasy. You know, one of the things that I think is happening with tv is that tv is mass fantasy and people are beginning to desire personal fantasy. They are going to the Magic Show on Broadway.

Alice: Yeah, that was a very good idea, by the way, that magic show on Broadway.

Richard: It's like a return to personal fan­tasy. Your live show is that. I wonder if it's becoming more and more important for people to see it. I mean one minute you'll be in Moscow and the next minute you are in Red China and they say, 'So what?' Yet they will go to Broadway and a guy will make someone float in mid-air —; which is certainly not as difficult — and they go, 'Oh, my God!'

Alice: Who knows if they really went to the moon. They could've done that in the studio and no one would have known. I think they produced the whole moon shot where they produced the Tang commer­cials.

Richard: Are you saying that those kinds of events don't get the proper presen­tation?

Alice: No, I'm just saying that if you look through history, how it worked, the entertainment business always thrived during economic problems — during the depression actors made 10 times more than anybody else — because people were escaping. And the only way they could es­cape was to go to the movies. You'll find that right now. We are in economic problems here in America and people are watching tv, looking for escape. People escape through alcohol, drugs, and cer­tain very straight people the only outlet they have is movies and tv. People in the entertainment field are thriving off economic problems and the worse it gets the more popular movies get and the more tv and the more popular looking up to an idol gets.

Richard: But depressions, I'm beginning to enjoy the depression, simply because it's allowing…

Alice: That's a terrific thing to say by the way...

Richard: Well, it allows a true sense of leisure and maybe you don't have money, but you have other things and you begin to discover people.

Alice: You're right, and you go to more simple forms of...

Richard: Simpler forms of enter­tainment.

Alice: Right, that's why I think vaudeville is so important.

Richard: If it comes back and tv goes away, I'll become a professional magician... I suspect sales of tv sets are down and I suspect at this time that A.) Less people have always watched tv than the networks claim and B.) there are less people watching tv than ever before, especially older people.

Alice: More people are bowling... Maybe it's time to balance it. Maybe we put tv too high on the list. Let's put tv back in the perspective that it is a form of enter­tainment. So is going to the theater and so is going to the movies. Now if I don't want to leave the house I can watch the top run movies on Channel Z and LA. Two years ago it was, 'Hey, want to go see the new James Bond movie?' Now it's wait 2 weeks and see it on tv. But that means I'm missing popcorn and jujubees and that whole thing.

Richard: One of the things I'm curious about as far as tv is concerned is what I call 'budget tv'. Like they have ads for two products in one commercial. It's like 'We can't afford to tape 2 commercials so we'll do 1 with 2 products.' So then you begin to think that they will only have color tv on weekends and black and white the rest of the time and use smaller actors because they take up less space and use less light on them.

Alice: What a thought. Alan Ladd will be back in business.

Richard: Maybe it will be good for tv to go through a lean period.

Alice: What about all those people doing their thing at once. Squeezing the Bounty instead of the Charmin, dogs go­ing meow instead of barking for Purina Dog Chow.

Richard: Eventually it will get so bad that they won't be able to afford anything and the network executives will send their wives and kids out to be on tv, like amateur hour...

Alice:I think that every comedy show, if it's going to be on, should have a live audience. I think it is their responsibility to entertain the audience.

Richard: If you had a choice of being anybody on any show, who would you pick? Robert Culp in "I Spy"?

Alice: I'll tell you, that was probably the best. But I'd probably fit better as a villain on "Man From U.N.C.L.E.". One of those guys that shows up every week, the mystery villain.

Richard: Would you want to put yourself in a format, a weekly show where you played a character?

Alice: I've never done it but it would be fun.

Richard: What are your thoughts on the subject of what you want to do?

Alice: I would never want to be a hero. Alice could never be a hero. Just for the fact that's it's not in me to be a hero I'm not that dashing. I'd much rather be a villain. I always have been. I mean I'm just a natural villain. But I could never have anybody's life, on tv, that's just not me. Let the truck hit the kid in the street and I might try to help, but then I might not in case I might get hurt too.

Richard: You've got a nice set of circumstances now, where you've got music to make and ideas to come up with and the staging of live performances to give and putting stuff on tv. Are you satisfied with that as a set of circumstances?

Alice: It's to the point now where I really feel, and not as an ego thing, but I really feel that I worked and earned that privilege. I was working toward an idea where I wanted to take myself to the point where I can attack on every level. And if I hadn't have gone out on a limb a being Alice Cooper in the beginning, I wouldn't have had that leverage at all. But now I think that I have it. I have enough power to go in and say, 'Look, I have an original idea for tv and at least you've got to listen to me because of the things you read about us before and the success of it.' So in other words, you build leverage. They have to listen to success. But you have to realize that it's ten years! It took me ten years to get to that point. But it's nice and satisfying and I feel right now that I'm really enjoying the fact that it took all that lime to get there and now I'm reaping all the benefits of it. And I'm also happy about the fact that I made it work my own way. I guess that would be true on anybody's level. The only guy who doesn't feel that way is the guy who designed the Edsel. Cause that was a great idea, but an ugly car and nobody wanted it.

(From the collection of David Gullberg; image 1-2 provided by Hunter Goatley from the original publication; images 3-5 taken from a reprint of the article published in an unknown issue of Hit Parader)