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Rocker Cooper winning over fans on new restaurant's opening day

Rocker-restaurateur Alice Cooper welcomed 500 guests — not to his nightmare, but to a pulled pork-smoked turkey dreams come true.

Cooper autographed jeans, a $50 bill and a Kermit the Frog during the opening of his Cooper'stown Cleveland restaurant Tuesday. The restaurant, a rock-jock barbecue place, is across from Jacobs Field.

Cooper ducked out of his opening party and surprised the fans and players at the Cavaliers-Phoenix Suns game at nearby Gund Arena. (Cooper's other restaurant is in Phoenix.)

It was planned that Cooper would wear a half-Cavs, half­Suns jersey so as not to play favorites. But when he got there, only a Cavs jersey was produced. Sorry, I can't wear that, said Cooper the Diplomat, who is a Suns season ticket holder. He went out on the court jerseyless in his signature black, with leather jacket and eye makeup.

Showman Cooper got himself introduced as the Cavs' "sixth man." That's the pregame ritual in which a fan is pulled from the stands to introduce himself and start the game. Cooper, not at all Gund-shy, said, "Hi, I'm Alice Cooper, your new, noisy neighbor!"

Alice Cooper shocks em at rock hall with charm, wit

Author: John Soeder

He was every parent's worst nightmare in the '70s — a ghoul who wore a boa (as in constrictor, not feather) and lost his head onstage with a guillotine.

But the most shocking thing about shock-rock pioneer Alice Cooper's appearance last night at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum was how witty, charming and bright he turned out to be.

"I was looking at rock 'n' roll, going, 'Where are the villains?'" said the 54-year-old Cooper, born Vincent Furnier in Detroit and raised in Phoenix. Among his formative influences, he cited the Beatles, Bela Lugosi and "The Creature from the Black Lagoon."

A standing-room-only crowd of 200 fans turned out to catch Cooper in the museum's fourth-floor theater. Dressed entirely in black, he discussed everything from how his smeared make-up was inspired by Bette Davis in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" to his triumph over alcoholism ("I'm in better shape now than I was 25 years ago, by far") during a 75-minute interview with David Spero, the rock hall's vice president of education and public programs.

Cooper didn't sing, although he did share the stories behind "Eighteen," "Only Women Bleed" and other songs. "School's Out," his first Top 10 hit, sought to evoke "the last three minutes of the last day of school," he said.

His highly theatrical, intricately choreographed concerts, which influenced everyone from Kiss to Marilyn Manson, were designed to be on par with "a full-blown Broadway production," Cooper said.

He also set the record straight about the live chicken someone tossed his way during a 1969 performance in Toronto. No, Cooper didn't slaughter it. The audience did, after he threw the hapless fowl back, thinking it would take wing.

"It didn't fly as much as it plummeted," Cooper recalled.

He recently collaborated with Oscar-winning composer Alan Menken on a project titled "Alice Cooper's Seven Deadly Sins," although Cooper said he was unsure if it would become a cartoon or a stage play. He is working on a new album, too.

Cooper was in town for the grand opening of his Cooper'stown restaurant on East Ninth Street, now serving burgers, chicken wings and other American fare.

It's half sports bar, half rock 'n' roll shrine, with a lot of Cooper memorabilia on the walls.

"It's certainly not appetizing looking at my pictures in there," said the rocker-turned-restaurateur. "But the food is great."