Alice Cooper

Alice Cooper Net Worth 2025: Earnings, Career, & Legacy

Alice Cooper—an enduring icon of rock and shock rock—has built an extraordinary legacy over five decades in music and entertainment. This article explores his net worth as of 2025, his career highlights, sources of income, personal life, and social presence.

Personal Profile About Alice Cooper

Age, Biography, and Wiki

Occupation Metal Singer
Date of Birth 4 February 1948
Age 77 Years
Birth Place Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Horoscope Aquarius
Country U.S

Height, Weight & Measurements

On December 15, 2010, it was announced Cooper and his former band would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The induction ceremony took place on March 14, 2011, where Cooper was inducted by fellow horror-rocker Rob Zombie. Original members Bruce, Cooper, Dunaway, and Smith all made brief acceptance speeches and performed "I'm Eighteen" and "School's Out" live together, with Steve Hunter filling in for the late Glen Buxton. Cooper showed up for the event wearing a (presumably fake) blood-splattered shirt and had a live albino Burmese python wrapped around his neck. Cooper told Rolling Stone magazine that he was "elated" by the news and that the nomination had been made for the original band, as "We all did go to the same high school together, and we were all on the track team, and it was pretty cool that guys that knew each other before the band ended up going that far".

Cooper recorded the album Solid Rock Revival with different, child-friendly lyrics for his songs and those of other artists. "School's Out" became "School's In", "No More Mr. Nice Guy" became "Now, I'm Mr. Nice Guy" and "I'm Eighteen" became "I'm Thirteen". With Rob Halford he recorded "Pleasant Dreams", and with Darryl McDaniels he recorded a hip hop version of "In the Midnight Hour" called "Midday Hour". Proceeds go to Norelli Family Foundation and Cooper's Solid Rock Foundation.

After his separation from Lang, Cooper was briefly linked with actress Raquel Welch, although according to Dick Wagner, Cooper rejected Welch's advances. Cooper ended up marrying ballerina instructor and choreographer Sheryl Goddard, who performed in the Alice Cooper show from 1975 to 1982. They married on March 20, 1976. In November 1983, at the height of Cooper's alcoholism, Goddard filed for divorce, but by mid-1984, she and Cooper had reconciled. They have three children: daughters Sonora and Calico, and son Dashiell.

Height 6 feet 2 inches
Weight 165 lbs
Body Measurements
Eye Color
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Dating & Relationship Status

He was named after his uncle, Vincent Collier Furnier, and the short-story writer Damon Runyon. His father was an evangelist in The Church of Jesus Christ, and his paternal grandfather Thurman Sylvester Furnier was a leader and later president (1963–1965) of that church organization.

The group's 1971 tour featured a stage show involving mock fights and gothic torture modes being imposed on Cooper, climaxing in a staged execution by electric chair, with the band sporting tight, sequined, color-contrasting glam rock-style costumes made by prominent rock-fashion designer Cindy Dunaway (sister of band member Neal Smith, and wife of band member Dennis Dunaway). Cooper's androgynous stage role had developed to present a villainous side, portraying a potential threat to modern society. The success of the band's single and album, and their tour of 1971, which included their first tour of Europe (audience members reportedly included Elton John and a pre-Ziggy Stardust David Bowie), provided enough encouragement for Warner Bros. to offer the band a new multi-album contract.

The summer of 1972 saw the release of the single "School's Out". It went Top 10 in the U.S. and to number 1 in the UK, and remains a staple on classic rock radio to this day. The studio album School's Out reached No. 2 on the US charts and sold over a million copies. The band relocated to their new mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. With Cooper's on stage androgynous persona completely replaced with brattiness and machismo, the band solidified their success with subsequent tours in the United States and Europe, and won over devoted fans in droves while at the same time horrifying parents and outraging the social establishment. In the United Kingdom, Mary Whitehouse, a Christian morality campaigner, persuaded the BBC to ban the video for "School's Out", although Whitehouse's campaign did not prevent the single also reaching number one in the UK. Cooper sent her a bunch of flowers in gratitude for the publicity. Meanwhile, British Labour Member of Parliament Leo Abse petitioned Home Secretary Reginald Maudling to have the group banned altogether from performing in the country.

With a string of successful concept albums and several hit singles, the band continued their grueling schedule and toured the United States again. Continued attempts by politicians and pressure groups to ban their shocking act only served to fuel the legend of Alice Cooper further and generate even greater public interest. Their 1973 US tour broke box office records previously set by the Rolling Stones and raised rock theatrics to new heights; the multi-level stage show by then featured numerous special effects, including Billion Dollar Bills, decapitated baby dolls and mannequins, a dental psychosis scene complete with dancing teeth, and the ultimate execution prop and highlight of the show: the guillotine. The guillotine and other stage effects were designed for the band by magician James Randi, who appeared on stage during some of the shows as executioner. In 2012 at Dragon Con, Randi and Cooper discussed their working relationship during this period. The Alice Cooper group had now reached its peak and it was among the most visible and successful acts in the industry. Beneath the surface, however, the repetitive schedule of recording and touring had begun to take its toll on the band.

On June 20, 2005, ahead of his June–July 2005 tour, Cooper had a wide-ranging interview with interviewer of celebrities Andrew Denton for the Australian ABC TV's Enough Rope. Cooper discussed various issues during the talk, including the horrors of acute alcoholism and his subsequent cure, being a Christian, and his social and work relationship with his family. During the interview, Cooper remarked "I look at Mick Jagger and he's on an 18-month tour and he's six years older than me, so I figure, when he retires, I have six more years. I will not let him beat me when it comes to longevity."

In the period when the Alice Cooper group was signed to Frank Zappa's Straight label, Miss Christine of the GTOs became Cooper's girlfriend. Miss Christine (real name Christine Frka), who had recommended Zappa to the group, died on November 5, 1972, of an overdose. Another long-time girlfriend of Cooper's was Cindy Lang, with whom he lived for several years.

Cooper and his wife started Solid Rock foundation in 1995. The first of several teen centers opened in Phoenix, Arizona in 2012. Another opened in Mesa, Arizona in 2021. The centers offer vocational and arts training.

In a 2002 television interview, Cooper stated that he had never cheated on his wife the entire time they had been together. In the same interview, he also said that the secret to a lasting and successful relationship is to continue going out on dates with one's partner.

In a 2019 interview, Cooper said that he and his wife Sheryl have a death pact, wherein they will die at the same time, sparking a flurry of headlines. But Cooper clarified his comments, telling USA Today, "What I was meaning was that because we're almost always together, at home and on the road, that if something did happen to either of us, we'd most likely be together at the time. But neither of us has a suicide pact. We have a life pact."

Throughout his career, Cooper's philosophy regarding politics is that politics should not be mixed with rock music. Cooper has usually kept his political views to himself, and in 2010 said, "I am extremely non-political. I go out of my way to be non-political. I'm probably the biggest moderate you know. When John Lennon and Harry Nilsson used to argue politics, I was sitting right in the middle of them, and I was the guy who was going 'I don't care.' When my parents would start talking politics, I would go in my room and put on the Rolling Stones or the Who as long as I could avoid politics. And I still feel that way."

Parents
Husband Sheryl Goddard (m. 1976)
Sibling
Children

Net Worth and Salary

During an interview for the program Entertainment USA in 1986, Cooper told interviewer Jonathan King that the Yardbirds were his favorite band of all time. Cooper had as far back as 1969 said that it was music from the mid-sixties, and particularly from British bands the Beatles, the Who, and the Rolling Stones, as well as the Yardbirds, that had the greatest influence on him. Cooper would later pay homage to the Who by singing "I'm a Boy" for A Celebration: The Music of Pete Townshend and The Who in 1994 at Carnegie Hall in New York, and performing a cover version of "My Generation" on the Brutal Planet tour of 2000. During an interview with Ozzy Osbourne from radio program Nights with Alice Cooper on May 22, 2007, Cooper again affirmed his debt of gratitude to these bands, and to the Beatles in particular. During their discussion, Cooper and Osbourne bemoaned the often inferior quality of songwriting coming from contemporary rock artists. Cooper stated that in his opinion the cause of the problem was that certain modern bands "had forgotten to listen to the Beatles".

Career, Business, and Investments

Vincent Damon Furnier (born February 4, 1948), known by his stage name Alice Cooper, is an American rock singer and songwriter whose career spans sixty years. With a raspy voice and a stage show that features numerous props and stage illusions, Cooper is considered by music journalists and peers to be "The Godfather of Shock Rock". He has drawn from horror films, vaudeville, and garage rock to pioneer a macabre and theatrical brand of rock designed to shock audiences.

Originating in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1964, Alice Cooper was originally a band consisting of Furnier, guitarists Glen Buxton and Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway, and drummer Neal Smith. The band released seven albums from 1969 to 1973 and broke up in 1975. Having legally changed his name to Alice Cooper, Furnier began a solo career that year with the concept album Welcome to My Nightmare. During his career he has sold over 50 million records.

In autumn 1970, the Alice Cooper group teamed with producer Bob Ezrin for the recording of their third studio album, Love It to Death. This was the final album in their Straight Records contract and the band's last chance to create a hit. That first success came with the single "I'm Eighteen", released in November 1970, which reached number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1971. Not long after the album's release in January 1971, Warner Bros. Records purchased Alice Cooper's contract from Straight and re-issued the album, giving the group a higher level of promotion.

Muscle of Love, released at the end of 1973, was to be the last studio album from the classic lineup, and marked Alice Cooper's last UK Top 20 single of the 1970s with "Teenage Lament '74". An unsolicited theme song was recorded for the James Bond spy film The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), but a different song of the same name by Lulu was chosen instead. By 1974, the Muscle of Love album still had not matched the top-charting success of its predecessor, and the band began to have constant disagreements. For various reasons, the members agreed to take what was expected to be a temporary hiatus. "Everyone decided they needed a rest from one another", said manager Shep Gordon at the time. "A lot of pressure had built up, but it's nothing that can't be dealt with. Everybody still gets together and talks." Journalist Bob Greene spent several weeks on the road with the band during the Muscle of Love Christmas Tour in 1973. His book Billion Dollar Baby, released in November 1974, painted a less-than-flattering picture of the band, showing a group in total disharmony. Cooper later wrote an autobiography with Steven Gaines called Me, Alice (1976) which gave Cooper's version of that era of his career, among other things.

In mid-1983, after the recording of DaDa was completed, Cooper was hospitalized for alcoholism again, and cirrhosis of the liver. He credits his Christian faith for a recovery doctors described as "miraculous" and he talks of how he did not "recover" but how his addiction was "taken away" by Jesus Christ. Cooper was finally stable and sober (and has remained sober since that time) by the time DaDa and The Nightmare home video (of his 1975 TV Special) were released in the fall of that year; however, both releases performed below expectations. Even with The Nightmare scoring a nomination for 1984's Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video (he lost to Duran Duran), it was not enough for Warner Bros. to keep Cooper on their books. By February 1984, Cooper became a "free agent" for the first time in his career.

Cooper spent a lengthy period away from the music business dealing with personal problems. His divorce from Sheryl Cooper was heard at Maricopa County Superior Court, Arizona, on January 30, 1984, but a decision was made by the couple not to move forward with the divorce. The following month he guested at the 26th Annual Grammy Awards alongside co-presenter Grace Jones. Behind the scenes Cooper kept busy musically, working on new material in collaboration with Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry. The spring of 1984 was taken up with filming, Cooper acting in the B-grade horror movie Monster Dog, filmed in Torrelodones, Spain. Shortly thereafter he reconciled with Sheryl; the couple relocated to Chicago. The year closed with more writing sessions, this time in New York during November with Hanoi Rocks guitarist Andy McCoy. In 1985, he met and began writing songs with guitarist Kane Roberts. Cooper was subsequently signed to MCA Records, and appeared as guest vocalist on Twisted Sister's song "Be Chrool to Your Scuel". A music video was made for the song, featuring actor Luke Perry and Cooper donning his black snake-eyes makeup for the first time since 1979, but neither the song nor the video drew public interest.

In 1986, Alice Cooper officially returned to the music industry with the studio album Constrictor. The album spawned the hits "He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)" (the theme song for the movie Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives; in the video for the song Cooper was given a cameo role as a deranged psychiatrist) and the fan favorite "Teenage Frankenstein". The Constrictor album was a catalyst for Cooper to make a triumphant return to the road for the first time since the 1981 Special Forces project, on a tour titled The Nightmare Returns. The Detroit leg of this tour, which took place at the end of October 1986 during Halloween, was captured on film as The Nightmare Returns (1987), and is viewed by some as being the definitive Alice Cooper concert film. It was released on DVD in 2006. The concert, which received rave reviews in the rock music press, was also described by Rolling Stone magazine as bringing "Cooper's violent, twisted onstage fantasies to a new generation". The Constrictor album was followed by Raise Your Fist and Yell in 1987, which had an even rougher sound than its predecessor, as well as the Cooper classic "Freedom". The subsequent tour of Raise Your Fist and Yell, which was heavily inspired by the slasher horror movies of the time such as the Friday the 13th series and A Nightmare on Elm Street, served up a shocking spectacle similar to its predecessor, and courted the kind of controversy, especially in Europe, that recalled the public outrage caused by Cooper's public performances in America in the early 1970s.

In 1988, Cooper's contract with MCA Records expired and he signed with Epic Records. Then in 1989 his career finally experienced a legitimate revival with the Desmond Child produced and Grammy-nominated studio album Trash, which spawned a hit single "Poison", which reached No. 2 in the UK and No. 7 in the US, and a worldwide arena tour.

In 1991, Cooper released his nineteenth studio album Hey Stoopid featuring several notable rock musicians guesting on the record. Released as glam metal's popularity was on the wane, and just before the explosion of grunge, it failed to have the same commercial impact as its predecessor. The same year also saw the release of the video Alice Cooper: Prime Cuts which chronicled his entire career using in depth interviews with Cooper himself, Bob Ezrin, and Shep Gordon. One critic has noted that Prime Cuts demonstrates how Cooper had used (in contrast to similar artists who succeeded him) themes of satire and moralization to such good effect throughout his career. It was in the Prime Cuts video that Bob Ezrin delivered his own summation of the Alice Cooper persona: "He is the psycho killer in all of us. He's the axe murderer, he's the spoiled child, he's the abuser, he's the abused; he's the perpetrator, he's the victim, he's the gun slinger, and he's the guy lying dead in the middle of the street".

On June 9, 2011, Cooper was awarded the Kerrang! Icon Award at Kerrang! magazine's annual awards show. Cooper used the opportunity to hit out at the "anaemic" rock music that dominates the charts, and said he has no intention of retiring from the industry.

In the foreword to Alice Cooper's CD retrospective box set The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper, John Lydon of the Sex Pistols pronounced Killer (1971) as the greatest rock album of all time, and in 2002 Lydon presented his own tribute program to Cooper on BBC radio. Lydon told the BBC that "I know the words to every Alice Cooper song. The fact is, if you can call what I have a musical career, it all started with me miming to 'I'm Eighteen' on a jukebox."

Cooper is a fan of both the NHL's Detroit Red Wings and Arizona Coyotes. On February 18, 2012, the Coyotes gave away his bobblehead in a promotion for the first 10,000 fans for a game with the Dallas Stars. Cooper is a longtime baseball fan, supporting the Arizona Diamondbacks and Detroit Tigers. As a child, he dreamed of playing left field in the Tigers outfield alongside Tigers Hall of Famer Al Kaline. He has coached Little League baseball teams since his son played in the early 1990s. Cooper is also a fan of NBA basketball, supporting both the Detroit Pistons and the Phoenix Suns.

At the Musical Instrument Museum of Phoenix, Cooper is honored with a dedicated exhibit showcasing props and instruments from his career, including one of the dummy heads used during the infamous guillotine stunt.

Social Network

In 1968, the band learned that Todd Rundgren also had a band called Nazz, which was signed to a major label, and found themselves in need of another stage name. Furnier also believed that the group needed a gimmick to succeed, and that other bands were not exploiting the showmanship potential of the stage. They chose the name "Alice Cooper" largely because it sounded innocuous and wholesome, in humorous contrast to the band's image and music. In his 2007 book Alice Cooper, Golf Monster, Cooper stated that his look was inspired in part by films. One of the band's all-time favorite movies was What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) starring Bette Davis: "In the movie, Bette wears disgusting caked makeup smeared on her face and underneath her eyes, with deep, dark, black eyeliner." Another movie the band watched over and over was Barbarella (1968): "When I saw Anita Pallenberg playing the Great Tyrant in that movie in 1968, wearing long black leather gloves with switchblades coming out of them, I thought, 'That's what Alice should look like.' That, and a little bit of Emma Peel from The Avengers."

One night after an unsuccessful gig at the Cheetah club in Venice, Los Angeles, where the band emptied the entire room of patrons after playing just ten minutes, they were approached and enlisted by music manager Shep Gordon, who saw the band's negative impact that night as a force that could be turned in a more productive direction. Shep then arranged an audition for the band with composer and renowned record producer Frank Zappa, who was looking to sign bizarre music acts to his new record label, Straight Records. For the audition Zappa told them to come to his house "at 7 o'clock." The band mistakenly assumed he meant 7 o'clock in the morning. Being woken up by a band willing to play that particular brand of psychedelic rock at seven in the morning impressed Zappa enough for him to sign them to a three-album deal. Another Zappa-signed act, the all-female GTOs, who liked to "dress the Cooper boys up like full size Barbie dolls," played a major role in developing the band's early onstage look.

Alice Cooper's "shock rock" reputation apparently developed almost by accident at first. An unrehearsed stage routine involving Cooper, a feather pillow, and a live chicken garnered attention from the press; the band decided to capitalize on the tabloid sensationalism, creating in the process a new subgenre, shock rock. Cooper claims that the infamous "Chicken Incident" at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival concert in September 1969 was an accident. A chicken somehow made its way onto the stage into the feathers of a feather pillow they would open during Cooper's performance, and not having any experience with farm animals, Cooper presumed that, because the chicken had wings, it would be able to fly. He picked it up and threw it out over the crowd, expecting it to fly away. The chicken instead plummeted into the first few rows occupied by wheelchair users, who reportedly proceeded to tear the bird to pieces. The next day the incident made the front page of national newspapers, and Zappa phoned Cooper and asked if the story, which reported that he had bitten off the chicken's head and drunk its blood on stage, was true. Cooper denied the rumor, whereupon Zappa told him, "Well, whatever you do, don't tell anyone you didn't do it."

In February 1973, Billion Dollar Babies was released worldwide and became the band's most commercially successful studio album, reaching No. 1 in both the US and UK. "Elected", a late-1972 Top 10 UK hit from the album, which inspired one of the first MTV-style story-line promo videos ever made for a song (three years before Queen's promotional video for "Bohemian Rhapsody"), was followed by two more UK Top 10 singles, "Hello Hooray" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy", the latter of which was the last UK single from the album; it reached No. 25 in the US. The title track, featuring guest vocals by Donovan, was also a US hit single. Around this time Glen Buxton left Alice Cooper briefly because of waning health.

Accompanying the album and stage show was the television special The Nightmare, starring Cooper and Vincent Price, which aired on US prime-time TV in April 1975. The Nightmare (which was later released on home video in 1983 and gained a Grammy Award nomination for Best Long Form Music Video) was regarded as another groundbreaking moment in rock history. Adding to it all, a concert film, Welcome to My Nightmare, produced, directed, and choreographed by West Side Story cast member David Winters and filmed live at London's Wembley Arena in September 1975, was released to theaters in 1976. The film was released in a special edition DVD in 2017.

Cooper's studio albums from the beginning of the 1980s have been referred to by Cooper as his "blackout albums" because he cannot remember recording them, owing to the influence of his new, and increasing, cocaine addiction. Flush the Fashion (1980), Special Forces (1981), Zipper Catches Skin (1982) and DaDa (1983) saw a gradual commercial decline, with the last two not charting within the Billboard Top 200. Flush the Fashion, produced by Roy Thomas Baker, known for his work with Queen and the Cars, had a thick, edgy new wave musical sound that baffled even longtime fans, though it still yielded the US Top 40 hit "Clones (We're All)". The track also surprisingly charted on the US Disco Top 100 chart. Special Forces featured a more aggressive but consistent new wave style, and included a new version of "Generation Landslide" from Billion Dollar Babies (1973). His tour for Special Forces marked Cooper's last time on the road for nearly five years; it was not until 1986, for Constrictor, that he toured again. 1982's Zipper Catches Skin was a more pop punk-oriented recording, containing many quirky high-energy guitar-driven songs along with his most unusual collection of subject matters for lyrics, and Patty Donahue of the Waitresses provided guest vocals and "sarcasm" on the track "I Like Girls". 1983 marked the return collaboration of producer Bob Ezrin and guitarist Dick Wagner for the haunting epic DaDa, the final studio album in his Warner Bros. contract.

In 1994, Cooper released The Last Temptation, his first concept album since DaDa (1983). The album deals with issues of faith, temptation, alienation and the frustrations of modern life, and has been described as "a young man's struggle to see the truth through the distractions of the 'Sideshow' of the modern world". Concurrent with the release of The Last Temptation was a three-part comic book series written by Neil Gaiman, fleshing out the album's story. This was to be Cooper's last album with Epic Records since according to Brian 'Renfield' Nelson, Cooper's personal assistant, "Alice was interested in going to Hollywood Records even before 'The Last Temptation' was released because Bob Pfeifer, who originally signed Alice to Epic, was now the President of Hollywood Records. After 'The Last Temptation' was finished, Alice requested that Sony/Epic let him go so that he could make the switch to Hollywood. He just wanted to go where his friends are." and was his last studio release for six years, though during this period the live album A Fistful of Alice (1997) was released, and in 1997 he lent his voice to the intro track of Insane Clown Posse's The Great Milenko.

The first decade of the 21st century saw a sustained period of activity from Alice Cooper, the decade in which he would turn 60. He toured extensively releasing a steady stream of studio albums to favorable critical acclaim. Beginning in 2000 with Brutal Planet, a return to horror-filled heavy metal, industrial rock, set in a dystopian post-apocalyptic future. The album was produced by Bob Marlette, with longtime Cooper production collaborator Bob Ezrin returning as executive producer. The accompanying world tour, which included Cooper's first concert in Russia, also resulted in Brutally Live (2000), a DVD of a concert, recorded in London, England, on July 19, 2000.

Brutal Planet was succeeded by the sonically similar and acclaimed sequel Dragontown (2001), which saw Bob Ezrin back as producer. The album has been described as leading the listener down "a nightmarish path into the mind of rock's original conceptual storyteller" and by Cooper himself as being "the worst town on Brutal Planet". Like The Last Temptation, both Brutal Planet and Dragontown are albums which explore Cooper's born-again Christianity. It is often cited in the music media that Dragontown forms the third chapter in a trilogy begun with The Last Temptation; however, Cooper has indicated that this in fact is not the case.

Cooper participated as a judge on the music competition television show No Cover season 1 that started to be aired in the Sumerian Records YouTube Channel in April 2022.

On seeing shock rock pioneer Arthur Brown performing his US number two hit "Fire" in 1968, Cooper states, "Can you imagine the young Alice Cooper watching that with all his make-up and hellish performance? It was like all my Halloweens came at once!" A 2014 article on Alice Cooper in The Guardian mentioned Arthur Brown and his flaming helmet, "British rock always was more theatrical than its US counterpart. Often this involved destruction or macabre gimmickry", with Cooper responding, "That's why most people thought we were British at first."

In the early 1970s, a story was widely reported that Leave It to Beaver actor Ken Osmond had become "rock star Alice Cooper". According to Cooper, the rumor began when a college newspaper editor asked him what kind of child he was, to which Cooper replied, "I was obnoxious, disgusting, a real Eddie Haskell," referring to the fictional character Osmond portrayed. However, the editor ended up reporting that Cooper was the real Haskell. Cooper later told the New Times: "It was the biggest rumor that ever came out about me. Finally, I got a T-shirt that said, 'No, I am not Eddie Haskell.' But people still believed it."

Education

The Furnier family resided in East Detroit on Lincoln Ave near Kelly Road, a few blocks from Eastland Mall. Cooper attended Kantner Elementary School, recalled watching horror movies at the Eastown Theatre (where he would later perform), and local neighborhood trick-or-treating on Halloween, the "biggest night of the year", which he took "very seriously". Cooper was active in his church at ages 11 to 12. Following a series of childhood illnesses, he moved with his family to Phoenix, Arizona, where he attended Cortez High School. In his high school yearbook, his ambition was to be "A million record seller".

In 1964, 16-year-old Furnier was eager to participate in Cortez High School's annual Letterman's talent show, so he gathered four fellow cross country teammates to form a group for the show: Glen Buxton, Dennis Dunaway, John Tatum, and John Speer. They named themselves the Earwigs. They dressed up in costumes and wigs to resemble the Beatles, and performed several parodies of Beatles songs, with the lyrics modified to refer to the track team: in their rendition of "Please Please Me", for example, the line "Last night I said these words to my girl" was replaced with "Last night I ran four laps for my coach". Of the group, only Buxton knew how to play an instrument—the guitar—so Buxton played guitar while the rest mimed on their instruments. The group got an overwhelming response from the audience and won the talent show. As a result of their positive experience, the group decided to try to turn into a real band. They acquired musical instruments from a local pawn shop, and proceeded to learn how to play them, with Buxton doing most of the teaching, as well as much of the early songwriting. They soon renamed themselves the Spiders, featuring Furnier on lead vocals, Buxton on lead guitar, Tatum on rhythm guitar, Dunaway on bass guitar, and Speer on drums.

In 1966, the Spiders graduated from Cortez High School, and after North High School football player Michael Bruce replaced John Tatum on rhythm guitar, the band released their second single, "Don't Blow Your Mind", an original composition which became a local hit, backed by "No Price Tag".

The classic Alice Cooper group lineup consisted of Furnier, lead guitarist Glen Buxton, rhythm guitarist Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway, and drummer Neal Smith. With the exception of Smith, who graduated from Camelback High School (which is referred to in the song "Alma Mater" on the band's fifth studio album School's Out), all of the band members were on the Cortez High School cross-country team. Cooper, Buxton, and Dunaway were also art students, and their admiration for the works of surrealist artists such as Salvador Dalí would further inspire their future stage antics.

In 1978, a sobered Cooper used his experience in the sanitarium as the inspiration for his semi-autobiographical studio album From the Inside, which he co-wrote with Bernie Taupin, known for his work with Elton John; it spawned yet another US Top 20 hit ballad, "How You Gonna See Me Now". The subsequent tour's stage show was based inside an asylum, and was filmed for Cooper's first home-video release, The Strange Case of Alice Cooper, in 1979. Around this time, Cooper performed "Welcome to My Nightmare", "You and Me", and "School's Out" on The Muppet Show (episode #307) on March 28, 1978 (he played one of the devil's henchmen trying to dupe Kermit the Frog, Gonzo and Miss Piggy into selling their souls). He also appeared in an against-typecasting role as a piano-playing disco waiter in Mae West's final film, Sextette, and as a villain in the film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Cooper also led celebrities in raising money to remodel the famous Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles, California. Cooper himself contributed over $27,000 to the project, buying an O in the sign in memory of close friend and comedian Groucho Marx. In 1979, Cooper also guest starred on good friend Soupy Sales' show, Lunch with Soupy Sales and was hit in the face with a pie, as part of the show. When asked about the experience, Cooper had this to say about his friend: "Being from Detroit, I came home every day and watched Soupy at lunch (Lunch with Soupy Sales). One of the greatest moments of my life was getting pie-faced by Soupy. He was one of my all time heroes."

On July 1, 2007, Cooper performed a duet with Marilyn Manson at the B'Estival event in Bucharest, Romania. The performance represented a reconciliation between the two artists; Cooper had previously taken issue with Manson over his overtly anti-Christian on stage antics and had sarcastically made reference to the originality of Manson's choosing a female name and dressing in women's clothing. Cooper and Manson have been the subject of an academic paper on the significance of adolescent antiheroes.

In January 2008, Cooper was one of the guest singers on Avantasia's third studio album The Scarecrow, singing the seventh track "The Toy Master". In July 2008, after lengthy delays, Cooper released Along Came a Spider, his eighteenth solo studio album. It was Cooper's highest-charting album since 1991's Hey Stoopid, reaching No. 53 in the US and No. 31 in the UK. The album, visiting similar territory explored in 1987's Raise Your Fist and Yell, deals with the nefarious antics of a deranged serial killer named "Spider" who is on a quest to use the limbs of his victims to create a human spider. The album generally received positive reviews from music critics, though Rolling Stone magazine opined that the music on the record sorely missed Bob Ezrin's production values. The resulting Theatre of Death tour of the album (during which Cooper is executed on four separate occasions) was described in a long November 2009 article about Cooper in The Times as "epic" and featuring "enough fake blood to remake Saving Private Ryan".

During this period Cooper was also recognized and awarded in various ways: given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003; in May 2004 he received an honorary doctoral degree from Grand Canyon University. In June 2005, he was inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame. In May 2006 he was given the key to the city of Alice, North Dakota. He won the living legend award at the 2006 Classic Rock Roll of Honour Awards event; and he won the 2007 Mojo music magazine Hero Award. He received a Rock Immortal award at the 2007 Scream Awards.

In January 2010, it was announced that Cooper would be touring with Rob Zombie on The Gruesome Twosome Tour. In May 2010, Cooper made an appearance during the beginning of the season finale of the singing competition show American Idol, in which he sang "School's Out".

Conclusion

Alice Cooper remains a towering figure in rock music, with a net worth estimated between $50 million and $70 million in 2025. His longevity is a testament to his talent, business acumen, and ability to adapt, making him one of the most influential and enduring artists in music history.

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Jeffrey Wright, Robert Redford, Andy Samberg, Chevy Chase, Belal Muhammad, Eva Braun, Rachel McAdams, Steven Adams, Anne Heche, Tony Dalton, Shaquille O'Neal, John Denver, Rafael Nadal, Chloë Sevigny, Oscar Piastri, Eva Green, Vitaly Zdorovetskiy, Dick Cheney, Muhammad Yunus, Robert Kardashian