Me, Alice: The Autobiography of Alice Cooper

The picture of the stalled truck and billboard appeared in almost every paper the next day and Wembley Pool Auditorium sold out by the following evening. Truly Cooperesque. But the party at Chessington Zoo was scheduled for the afternoon of the concert. If we had brought Hollywood back to LA at the Ambassador Hotel this time we were bringing LA to London. Chessington Zoo was a small park with a circus tent, not a typical place for a party. No less typical, though, than the fact we were serving only alcohol. I can’t imagine how we forgot to order any food. Alcohol in the afternoon is usually never served at press parties, especially in England where journalists get ripped when there’s any free booze around. I can’t say we blamed them. I didn’t get to the party until an hour after it started, and the moment I got out of my limo I knew I was going to have fun.

People were drunkenly stumbling around the zoo talking to animals in their cages. Mike Bruce was caught balling an English girl behind the baboon cage. A lady reporter from the Manchester Guardian was complaining to Shep that Neal Smith kept goosing her. There was one point when I looked around at the guests and everybody was holding a bottle of champagne in each hand. It was the most surrealistic thing. People probably thought they were having a dream. One lady with a flowered hat and little black handbag climbed into the bear cage and cuddled next to the bear for half an hour before she was discovered. She probably didn’t know she was there anyway. Her husband was very similar to the bear. (They get along famously and have three cubs and a daughter.)

At an Alice Cooper party everybody has the license to go off the deep end for a while. Picture three hundred Keith Moons and you’ve got the Chessington Zoo party. There was a juggler and fire-eater for entertainment in the tent, and then Dave Libert went to the center of the ring and announced an Alice Cooper special, the amazing “Sheila the Squealer,” a Soho stripper. Sheila’s slow peel got the crowd to their feet, if somewhat crookedly, and when she finally exposed her boobs, which were tattooed Alice Cooper the audience started lobbing beer cans in the air and screaming. Sheila looked like she was having the time of her life until she got company. Up in the stands the spirit of exhibitionism was also moving an American girl named Stacia. Everybody in rock and roll knew about Stacia and her 48-inch tits. That’s 96 inches of bust. When Stacia unstrapped her boobs and danced through the crowds to the floor she stole the spotlight from Sheila. Sheila started slapping at Stacia’s tits and yelling, “Get out of here! Put your clothes back on! This is my gig!”

Up in the stands a man dropped his pants and sprinkled all over the bleachers as people scattered to avoid the golden stream. Then he rushed down into the ring shaking his pecker at Stacia and Sheila, and chased them around the park. Then lots of people began to take off their clothes and bottles and beer cans were flying like rain. By the time the London police arrived the place looked like a bomb had blown off everybody’s clothing. Total damages: five people arrested for indecent exposure. We were the only ones with our clothes on — and we thought we were crazy. We looked like prudes!

The following November we returned to Europe for another month-long blitz hot on the tail of another giant single, “Elected,” which had been released in September in the United States and turned gold there only a month after. The Europeans really went all out for us our second time around. They couldn’t have greeted us more warmly at Glasgow, where three hundred kids ran over the police barricades at the airport and tipped our limousines over. The average teenager in Glasgow actually drinks more than we do (see Guinness Book of Records, page 37.) I wanted to perform wearing only two scarves, one for each of the two big soccer teams in Glasgow, but the authorities made me put on my whole costume.

In Paris we finally made it to the Olympia Theater, but the Parisians were just as hotheaded as ever. We started the show two hours late and halfway through the set some madman came storming up the aisle shouting in French and waving a flaming guitar doused in kerosene. He jumped up on the stage and yelled something at me and I yelled back, “Viva la France, up-a-your pants!” The audience cheered, which prompted him to throw his burning guitar at Glen. When he took a swing at me Shep himself rushed onto the stage and flattened the guy with one punch. Shep had to literally stand on the kid during the show until the police arrived and hauled him off.