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Alice Cooper Dances in Hell

Alice Cooper is about to return to the public eye with a new album, a cross-country tour and a possible major film role which would mark his first departure from the character that began overtaking his life in the late 60's.

Cooper's new album, which the working title of 'Hell', is a sequel to 'Welcome To My Nightmare' - "the further adventures of Steven," as one source characterizes it. Within the concept, which includes record and stage-shows ideas contributed by Alfred Hitchcock, Alice delivers more ballads along the line of "Only Women Bleed" as well as several "danceable" tunes.

Basic tracks were laid down in Los Angeles with a new band centered around guitarists Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter. Wagner and Hunter will also be the core of Cooper's touring unit, which is slated for intensive July-August roadwork in the U.S. and Canada. A spokesman for Cooper's Alive Enterprises said, "The tour will be limited to North America this year. We killed ourselves by taking 'Nightmare' overseas."

Laughingly but convincingly, he added, "We'll never go to Germany again. And if they brought Germany to us, we'd run."

Vocals and the final mix on 'Hell' were completed in April, with Cooper relocating to Toronto so producer Bob Ezrin could work on his home ground.

Before that, however, Cooper entered connubial bliss with, Sheryl Goddard, who portrayed Cold Ethyl in the 'Nightmare'. A high-camp wedding took place at Carlos and Charlie's, a Mexican-American bar in Acapulco, with Alice and Sheryl exchanging onion rings and vows. Goddard's father is a minister, as is Alice's and both sets of parents attended the ceremony.

While awaiting the completion of the rebuilding of Cooper's $350,000 home, which was totally gutted by a suspicious fire early last year, the newlyweds are residing at the former George Harrison mansion in Blue Jay Way. Alice lost his lifetime's worth of memorabilia in the fire but has been happily recycling his highly taxable dollars on any number of new gadgets that strike his fancy.

On the film front, Cooper has turned down numerous offers, including the opportunity to costar with George Segal and Gene Wilder as the Wicked Witch of the West in the remake of 'The Wizard of Oz'. Which will feature Tatum O'Neal in Shirley Temple's classic role of Dorothy, the trippy farm girl.

Serious consideration is being given to the possibility of Cooper's playing Bunny Hoover in the film version of Kurt Vonnegut's 'Breakfast of Champions', which would place Cooper under the direction of Robert Altman. In the film, Hoover is a piano player at a Holiday Inn lounge, "the kind of guy you hate the minute you see him."

Rumors of the old Alice Cooper group performing without Alice under the name of Billion Dollar Babies have repeatedly surfaced in the last six months, but little activity, save for tales surrounding the long-overdue Mike Bruce solo album, is visible.