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Liza & Alice Cooper: Is It A Love Song?

Their album may be the beginning of Liza's wildest romance!

Any Liza Minnelli opening is a happening. Ringsiding celebrities converge to pay homage. The Beautiful People are out in force. There's an electric excitement that only Liza can generate, and the promise of a memorable night of entertainment that only she can fulfill. But when the clatter of dinner dishes subsided, the curtains parted, and the lights went up for the premiere performance of Liza's latest engagement at the Riviera in Las Vegas, it was, even for Liza, a super­happening. You could sense it. You could feel it in the air. You could catch it in the affectionate, mirthful response of Liza when she called on Alice Cooper to take a bow. His hair fell with patented audacity to his shoulders, but there the resemblance to his bizarre image on the rock and roll concert trail came to a screeching halt. There was no ambiguity about his sex. He was all man, all seasoned 26 years of him. He popped masculine sexuality, his black shirt brashly unbuttoned almost to his waist, matching black slacks tailored to his manly gait and physique, a talisman dangling from a long gold chain around his neck.

The ovation was deafening. Liza loved it, her piquant face bathed in a warm smile, her hazel eyes wide with what looked pretty much like adoration.

Alice gave the overflow crowd a touch of what they wanted — a little of his trade­marked goofiness so they wouldn't feel cheated. He stuck his thumbs in his ears, wiggled his fingers, and stuck out his tongue.

The place was pandemonium.

Liza giggled like a little girl. She dug it. She dug it.

Alice's eyes searched out Liza's, and their glance met as if they were the only two in the vast huge nightclub. He grinned as he slipped back to his seat. She chuckled and threw him a see-you-later look. Way out in the open, they were beginning to speak their secret language.

No one knows how Liza does it, but each time out she exceeds herself. No one could remember when she was any greater. The whole town was at her feet. The well­wishers — the pushing army of dear friends and eager strangers — stormed her dressing room to echo what the applause already had told her: She was simply sensational.

But somehow Liza managed to extricate herself and keep her date with Alice Cooper. Only she knew that he was coming in to catch her opening. You couldn't keep him away.

He'd planned an affectionate one-night hello and goodbye, but Liza's magnetism wouldn't permit it. Alice Cooper stayed in Las Vegas and he was at Liza's show the next night and the night after that, and at her side after the show that night and the night after, just as on opening night.

There were those who refused to believe the evidence of their eyes. People often have trouble taking Liza's romances seriously when they first reveal themselves. Once more she was being predictably unpredictable. Liza and Alice Cooper! It had to be a put-on. But was it?

Fate, you may have heard, is a funny thing, and works, by the good Lord's leave, in mysterious ways its unending wonders to perform. A year ago, if anyone had mentioned Liza Minnelli and Alice Cooper in the same breath, he would have been carted off to the funny farm. But if someone suddenly let it out that the mercurial Liza, in her insatiable search for love and meaning, had flipped for a long-haired, soft-spoken kid from Phoenix by the name of Vince Fuurier, it wouldn't seem that far out at all. In fact, it might call up memories of her long love-in with Desi Arnaz's predecessor, Rex Kramer, the quiet Texas kid who was the man in Liza's life all the way up to the filming of Cabaret in Germany.

Life continues to be a cabaret for Liza Minnelli as she bounds, sometimes briefly and sometimes lingeringly, from one love to another, always in the end fleeing possession and its deadly threat of suffocation.

But always soulfully. For that is Liza's style. She loves passionately, devouringly — but always out of deep depths of sincerity and an unquenchable romanticism. That is her style — and, hopefully, not her curse.

Liza never despairs of the quest. Her life is split into fragmented eternities. For so long, it is Desi, now and forever. Then it is Peter Sellers, and then it is Edward Albert, and then Gianni Russo; and so much of the time, when she is back East, it seems, intriguingly, to be Ben Vereen.

Now there is Alice Cooper in Liza Minnelli's life, and her cheeks bloom and her eyes sparkle, and all is suddenly flamboyant again — possibly more flamboyant than it's ever been before. At least, on the surface. If Vince Furnier had never put his real name in escrow and chosen to "spit in the face of society" — his very own words — as "Alice Cooper," Liza's latest adventure might not have occasioned even a raised eyebrow, let alone a shock wave of stunned disbelief.

But perhaps, it was fated. If you're looking for signs, how about this? A year ago last April, right on the heels of Liza's night of triumph when she won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Cabaret, she flew with her love, Desi, to Toronto. There, hearts and hands locked in solemn commitment, they co-sponsored the First Annual Liza Minnelli and Desi Arnaz Celebrity Tennis Tournament for the benefit of a worthy charity. It was to be an annual pilgrimage consecrated to good deeds and undying love. It turned out to be the first and the last annual Liza and Desi Celebrity Tennis Tournament.

That state of affairs not only leaves Desi Arnaz Jr. in heartbroken disarray, it also leaves the promoters of the Toronto tennis extravaganza in the lurch. They have promised an annual celebrity tournament, and they mean to deliver. So what do they come up with? The first rock celebrity tennis sweepstakes, featuring the Canadian rock group Guess Who, and the guest participation of — guess who? Right — none other than Alice Cooper.

But that's not all. First plans were to get Liza to come back and do a solo reprise. They loved Liza in Toronto. They went crazy over her. If somehow Liza breaks loose and shows up at Toronto when Alice is there, well . . . write your own music.

And the tournament isn't the only odd coincidence. If you have access to or save old copies of Rolling Stone — the publication, not the group — dig up the issue of May 10, 1973, the one that came out right after the Liza and Desi romance was shot down. On the cover is a strange apparition. It's Alice Cooper — his feline face filling the whole front page — hair down to the back continued of his shoulders, thick Elizabeth Taylor eyebrows, a pearl necklace, and several day's growth of beard. Alice in mime, he insists. Not drag.

But that's just for starters. Take a closer look at that Rolling Stone. In fact, the type is so big that you don't have to squint. You can see it a half a ballroom away. Cheek by jowl, this is how the coverlines appeared, superimposed in white type against the black hair that fell over the tip of Alice's right earlobe: LIZA MINNELLl'S PRIVATE LIVES; and INSIDE ALICE COOPER.

Is that wild, or is that wild? They could re-run that cover today, and the two separate stories of a year ago could be fused into one. For Liza Minnelli's private lives have expanded to include Alice Cooper.

It matters not — and none but the two of them seems to know for sure &mdah; when they first met and got those sympathetic vibes. But the first tipoff — the first public tipoff — came when Liza backed Alice on the "Teenage Lament '74" track of his new Warner Bros. album on American sexuality, Muscle of Love.

When Liza showed up at a small recording studio known as The Record Plant on West 44th Street in New York City, it was hard to figure out what a nice superstar like Liza was doing in an out-of-the way place like that. If you listen to "Teenage Lament '74," it's even more baffling. Because unless you were furnished with a road map, there's no way you could tell that the fabulous "Liza with a Z is on the record, throwing in a couple of unrecognizable if spirited syllables in the background.

All that was obvious that day was that she dug the king of rock and rouge, as Alice sometimes is known. What was even more obvious was the chemistry that bubbled between the bubbly Liza and the real Alice Cooper — a genial, easygoing, witty, soft talking and likeable guy with a nice smile and a ready twinkle in his eyes. The eyes, though, are garishly highlighted by makeup when he's on the freak rock circuit. He strides onto the stage with his arsenal of cobras and mannequins and bleeding baby dolls, dressed in shredded leotards and elbow-long black leather gloves, brandishing a long black whip.

"Alice on stage doesn't think," Alice himself once admitted. "Alice is an animal." He has never denied the sexual overtones of his violent rock rituals.

It is curious — and fascinating — that Liza Minnelli's path should converge with Alice's at a time when Alice gives signs of tiring of his grotesque masquerade and yearning to show himself as the straight person his friends have always known him to be. One of those friends is a girl named Cindy, who has been his steady for six years. What she feels about Liza and Alice — if, indeed, she feels threatened at all — only she knows.

Once, a year or so ago, Alice said of Cindy that "she hates our music and she hates our image," and that "I really like the fact that she hates us." It now is apparent that Alice himself isn't all that crazy about his image. It is just as apparent that Liza isn't as critical as Cindy, that she takes Alice's music for what it is and thinks it's pretty cool, and that she is not put off by his image. But Alice still seems intent upon acquiring a new, straight look to match up with his own concept of the real Alice Cooper. He is, after all, the son of an ordained minister — and the ways of the son are not that far removed from the ways of the father.

"Offstage," confesses Alice with a boyish grin, "I'm Ozzie Nelson. I'm gentle. I walk around eating cookies and drinking beer. I work in opposites. Off stage, I'm pretty non-violent. I'm stable."

Any one who knows Alice — Liza, for instance — will vouch for that. You couldn't ask to meet a nicer guy. When he swept into Las Vegas to see Liza, he was also in the midst of his new golf kick. He digs golf almost as much as beer, and he's not thrown off because golf is an Establishment sport. His image and his habits are getting more Establishment by the minute — but that's no sign that Alice has sold out and is turning completely bland.

Alice arrived in Las Vegas with a miniature scotch plaid golf bag containing a long cylinder tube built to accommodate six cans of cold beer. While Liza slept and rested, he played golf every afternoon at the Dunes. Oddballs are not too popular at a golf course. If you don't come to play, you might as well have leprosy. Alice had no problems. Everyone dug his affability and his sincerity about golf. Also, his facility.

The singular thing about Alice is the esteem in which he is held. None of his old friends needs to be told he's a nice guy, easy to get along with — and straight as a ramrod. But people who meet him for the first time, and know him only by his mystique, are struck by those qualities. He doesn't come on strong. He doesn't have to. And it is that about Alice Cooper that clues you in to what draws Liza to him.

Liza Minnelli is the last girl in the world to squander her love on a circus clown.

There are, for instance, many men who dream of meeting porno star Linda Lovelace. Linda Lovelace sat a table away from Alice on Liza's opening night, but the one person he expressed an ambition to meet, other than Liza, was Bob Hope. He told a friend of Hope's about it, and the friend contacted Bob by phone, assured him that Alice was "a hell of a nice kid," and set it up for Alice to call Bob in Burbank so they could make a date to play golf at the Lakeside Country Club in Toluca Lake.

There are some who are slow to believe anything big will come out of Liza's friendship with Alice. One such doubter knows both of them quite well, but he has known each separately, not as a couple.

"They are pretty good friends," he acknowledges. "They did a recent album together and all of that. But Alice has been going with the same girl for six years, and to my knowledge has never fooled around. He's pretty straight when it comes to that."

But timing is everything in life, and timing bodes well for Liza and Alice. He is at a threshold in his career where he no longer wants just a chosen few to know the other side of him. He wants to prove to himself — and to everyone else — that he doesn't need to hide forever behind his Alice Cooper charade, that he can make it as himself as an entertainer. He's ready to shed his garish freak rock trappings and bare himself for what he is — a guy like most other guys.

He's already done one guest-starring part in The Snoop Sisters, and he's taped three guest shots on Hollywood Squares to give the world a surprising look at the "new" Alice Cooper, the Alice Cooper that Liza Minnelli has come to know.

Everyone took to him on both shows. He was eager to please and to fit in, but still boyish and playful. On the way to the studio for the Hollywood Squares taping, Alice stopped off at the Farmer's Market and had a T-shirt made up with a tic-tac toe square symbolizing the program and emcee Peter Marshall's name imprinted over it.

Almost as if he had to justify the new course in his career without repudiating the old, he compared himself with Hollywood Squares regular Cliff Arquette, who achieved fame as Charlie Weaver on the old Jack Paar show. He proposed that his facade as Alice Cooper is no different from the disguise of Cliff Arquette when he plays Charlie Weaver. As for a rock nut like Alice Cooper appearing on a show like Hollywood Squares, he shrugged with a grin, "Why shouldn't I do it? I'm having fun and I'm selling records."

Alice Cooper breezed into Las Vegas from Acapulco just to see Liza. He's got an enormous new villa he just bought in Acapulco. When Alice took leave of Liza, he went back to Acapulco. Parting is such sweet — and hopefully brief — sorrow. When her engagement was over at the Riviera, Liza was headed for a South American concert tour. Who knows? With destiny seemingly disposed to accommodate their togetherness, they might meet up in Acapulco before Toronto.

There's been a pattern to the loves of Liza Minnelli — and while it has brought her much fulfillment, it also has given her interludes of anguish. She has paid her dues. In the beginning, the man known as Alice Cooper had an interesting rationale for adopting a woman's name.

"I decided," he once reflected, "that with a name like Alice Cooper I could make them suffer."

He was talking largely about an uncomprehending and disapproving society. What irony it would be if Liza Minnelli were to suffer needlessly because that nice, straight world that adores her couldn't cope with the idea of her and a boy named Alice.