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Alice Cooper's Nightmare Show Goes On TV

'The kids will see really stunning evil'

Los Angeles - Alice Cooper, the bizarre bad boy of rock, will unveil his gruesome new stage act to millions of TV viewers next month.

The pop star, who won fame by smashing dolls and drinking fake blood on stage, claims the show has one aim: To bring out the evil in everyone.

And he vowed: "It will make the old Alice look as wholesome as John Denver."

One harrowing scene features Cooper and four dancers as black widow spiders performing a dance of death.

All Twisted

In another, Cooper murders a woman, then lies on a skull-draped bed beside her body and embraces her.

Horror movie king Vincent Price makes a guest appearance on the show, to be screened on ABC-TV's Wide World in Concert series on April 25 at 11:30pm.

Cooper told the Star this week: "I firmly believe that inside each and every one of us there's a vast capacity for evil.

"No matter how together we might appear on the surface, inside we're all of us twisted. That's the point I desperately want to bring out in the show... and we use some stunning effects to do it."

The age of an average Alice Cooper audience runs from 10 to 15 - how does he feel about preaching the "everyone is evil" line to such young minds?

He smiled: "They already understand about the theatrics of evil better than most adults I know."

The show gets its title from Cooper's new solo LP, Welcome To My Nightmare.

An ABC spokesman said: "We have the whole matter very careful consideration and we decided that as the show is going on at 11:30 p.m. there will be no young children watching and it is unlikely to cause offense."

Cooper has split with the other four members who formed the original Alice Cooper group, but he said: "It's not the way it's been reported - all that stuff about us hating each other and fighting and having alcohol-inspired hassles.

"We had been together a long time. We got to the stage where we all felt stale, and other guys wanted to try their own solo trips.

Roses

In the corner of the sitting room in Cooper's Laurel Canyon home is a vase of roses... a gift from country singer John Denver.

Cooper laughed: "I was interviewed somewhere and said in a piece that Denver was a pompous ass and I'd be around to water his flowers after he was gone.

"The day the article appeared Denver sent me the roses with a note saying, more or less, why wait?"