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Chips off the old rock

When you dad's a rock god, what are the chances of growing up normal? Here five girls with a pop pedigree tell their extraordinary tales.

Calico Cooper

Blonde, pretty and articulate, Calico Cooper, 22, is perhaps the antithesis of what you might expect of Alice Cooper's daughter. But according to Alice, Calico was 'virtually born backstage' and travels the world supporting him on his ghoulish stage tours. 'Alice is a villain, you'd not want to see him on your own,' says Alice. 'We would watch TV when Calico was a kid and she would talk about Alice as a character and say, "Oh, there's Alice, I wonder what he is going to do." I would take her to the stage and show her how the guillotine [his most famous stage prop] works and say, "Dad's head isn't really going to come off," and she would look at it and go, "Okay."'

Calico says, 'People do have an impression that I will be unapproachable because of my father. It's difficult for me dating because people say, "Oh, you are Calico," and then they just want to get away. Also, you are aware that one mistake will be celebrated in the Press, so I'm really careful.'

For all that, she remains very involved in her father's act, even appearing on stage as a nurse presiding over his 'beheading'. 'It was not until Dad put me in the show that I knew what it was like to be screamed at by 20,000 people. It is the ultimate, heart-stopping wow. It is pretty wild. But that said, Alice is only a character and Dad is never like him off stage. It is not like we get back on the bus and bite the heads off something. It seems quite normal to me. I didn't have a construction worker for a dad before him, so it's all I've ever known.'

(Originally published in the UK Daily Mail's Weekend supplement on 3rd April 2004)