Restaurant
File:Poster of the movie Restaurant.jpg
Directed by	Eric Bross
Produced by	H.M. Coakley Shana Stein
Written by	Tom Cudworth
Starring	Adrien Brody Elise Neal Lauryn Hill Malcolm-Jamal Warner David Moscow Simon Baker Catherine Kellner Jesse L. Martin
Music by	Theodore Shapiro
Cinematography	Horacio Marquínez
Editing by	Keith Reamer
Release date(s)	April 17, 1998
Running time	107 min.
Country
Language	English

Restaurant is a 1998 independent film starring Adrien Brody, Elise Neal, David Moscow and Simon Baker. Written by Tom Cudworth and directed by Eric Bross, Restaurant was the follow-up to this writing–directing duo's first film, TenBenny, which also starred Adrien Brody. Restaurant premiered at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival on April 17, 1998, and garnered Adrien Brody an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Male Lead. Set in Hoboken, New Jersey, Restaurant is a romantic comedy about young waiters with big dreams, but few chances to actually succeed. This is Grammy Award winning, Hip Hop artist Lauryn Hill's last movie to date.

Cast[link]

Awards and nominations[link]

Atlantic City Film Festival

• 1999: Won, "Best Full Feature Drama"

Independent Spirit Awards

• 2001: Nominated, "Best Male Lead" - Adrien Brody

External links[link]

• Restaurant (film) at the Internet Movie Database
• Restaurant at AllRovi

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This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (September 2010)

Baja Mali Knindža (Serbian Cyrillic: Баја Мали Книнџа; born October 13, 1966 in Livno ), whose real name is Mirko Paj�in (Мирко Пајчин), is a Serbian folk singer and songwriter. He is often described as part of the turbo folk scene, and known for his ultra-nationalist lyrics. He is a cousin of singer Ksenija Paj�in.

Biography[link]

Baja was born on 13 October 1966 in the village of Gubin, near Livno, Bosnia and Herzegovina, then Yugoslavia. He wrote his first song while staying at the house of Mom�ilo �ujić at Kr�i�. The song is well known. It is called "Nema Raja, bez rodnoga kraja" (There is no paradise without the place you were born).

Baja Mali Knindža is not to be mistaken with Nedeljko Bajić Baja, who is a well known turbo folk singer. Baja Mali Knindža performs chetnik songs and odes to alcohol, such as "Duni, vjetre, malo preko jetre" (Blow, wind, through the liver). Baja is well known for his nationalist songs supporting the Serbs during the Yugoslav wars. He gained the sympathy of the Serbian people. His first hit was Bpaти �е Војводо/Duke come back. In this song he appealed to Serbian hero and chetnik commander Fr. Mom�ilo �ujić, to came back to the areas of Krajina and help create Greater Serbia. He said that he would never consider going to Croatia because of the Ustashe burning down his house and desecrating his predecessors graves. Baja's performances in Zmijanje near Banja Luka, in the middle of August every year, attract tens of thousands of people. Since the fall of Krajina, Baja Mali Knindža has written many songs about his dream of the Serbian people returning to live in the territories re-controlled by Croats during the Serb exodus from Croatia. His songs also express his sorrow of living without his land. Many of the songs became instant hits, such as "Ne rodila ni njivo ni šljivo". Here is a sample of the lyrics from the song:

�е родила ни ,њиво, ни ,шљиво, / Neither plums or fields have grown

И �ве вам �e o�ушило живо! / and everything dried up on you!

Што �адили, ништа не родило! / Whatever you plant, nothing has grown!

Хеј , душмани, проклето вам било! / Oh, enemies, be cursed forever!

He wrote songs for many traditional folk bands such as Jandrino Jato, Sinovi Manja�e, Zvuci Tromeđe and Srpski Talibani. He is said to be a supporter of the Serb Radical Party but he did not promote them during elections. He has said that he would participate in governing the SRS.

Personal life[link]

Baja lives with his wife, three daughters and son in Novi Beograd and drives an older Mitsubishi Pajero SUV. Besides his native language, he also speaks English and Russian. His mother and father live in a newly built house in Sur�in.^{[citation needed]}

Controversy[link]

Baja Mali Knindža is controversial due to his nationalism.^[1] Many of his songs are condemned in Muslim parts of Bosnia and Croatia because he sings against their war leaders. For example, his song "Ne volim te Alija" describes his strong dislike for the Bosnian wartime president Alija Izetbegović and includes the lyrics:

�е волим те, �лија, / I don't like you Alija

Зато што �и балија / Because you're a Balija (a term which Bosniaks consider insulting)

Срушио �и миран �ан / You broke a peaceful dream

In one song, he sings "Ћути, ћути, ујко, убићу те ја" / shut up, shut up ujko (nickname for Ustašas, Croatian fascists from Wоrld War II), I will kill you. He has also sung "Ја не волим људе те, који воле ХДЗ"—I don't like those people who like the HDZ (A right-wing Croatian political party), and included "Јебала их шаховница" "f*** their šahovica (šahovnica literally means chessboard, but in this context it refers to the coat-of-arms of Croatia which is in a checkered form.

Discography[link]

Solo[link]

• 1991: Ne dam Krajine / Ð�е дам Крајине
• 1992: Stan'te paÅ¡e i UstaÅ¡e / Стан'те паше и уÑ�таше
• 1993: Živjeće ovaj narod / Живјеће овај народ
• 1993: Све за Ñ�рпÑ�тво, Ñ�рпÑ�тво низашта
• 1993: Uživo sa braćom Bajić, RaÅ¡om Pavlovićem, i Goricom Ilić / Уживо Ñ�а браћом Бајић Рашом Павловићем и Горицом Илић
• 1994: JoÅ¡ se niÅ¡ta ne zna / Још Ñ�е ништа не зна
• 1994: Rat i mir / Рат и мир
• 1994: Kockar bez sreće / Коцкар без Ñ�реће
• 1994: Pobijediće istina / Побиједиће иÑ�тина
• 1995: Igraju se delije / Играју Ñ�е делије
• 1995: Idemo Dalje / Идемо даље
• 1996: Zbogom oružje / Збогом оружје
• 1997: Ne dirajte njega / Ð�е дирајте њега
• 1998: Povratak u budućnost / Повратак у будућноÑ�Ñ‚
• 1998: Srpskim radikalima / СрпÑ�ким радикалима
• 1999: Biti il ne Biti / Бити ил не бити
• 1999: Život je tamo / Живот је тамо
• 2000: Zaljubljen i mlad / Заљубљен и млад
• 2001: Ä�e si legendo / Ђе Ñ�и легендо
• 2002: Zbogom pameti / Збогом памети
• 2003: Baja Mali Knindža: uživo / Уживо
• 2003: Luda Žurka - uživo / Луда журка - уживо
• 2006: Za kim zvona zvone /За ким звона звоне
• 2007: Gluvi barut / Глуви барут
• 2011: Ti si kralj / Tи Ñ�и краљ

With Braća sa Dinare band[link]

• 1994: Goki i Baja bend / Гоки и Баја бенд
• 1995: Bila jednom jedna zemlja / Била једном једна земља
• 1996: PlaÄ�i voljena zemljo / Плачи вољена земљо
• 1997: Ja se svoga, ne odriÄ�em groba / Ја Ñ�е Ñ�вога, не одричем до гроба
• 1998: Idemo do kraja / Идемо до краја

References[link]

External links[link]

• (Serbian) Official website
• (Serbian) Knindza Radio - Krajiska Muzika
• (Serbian) Interview
• baja mali knindza songs

Drew Carey
Carey in November 2008
Birth name	Drew Allison Carey
Born	(1958-05-23) May 23, 1958 (age 54) Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
Medium	Stand-up, television, film
Nationality	American
Years active	1985–present
Genres	Improvisational comedy
Notable works and roles	The Drew Carey Show Drew Carey's Green Screen Show Host of: Whose Line Is It Anyway? The Price Is Right Power of 10 Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza
Website	http://www.drewfromtv.blogspot.com

Drew Allison Carey (born May 23, 1958) is an American actor, comedian, sports executive, and game show host. After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps and making a name for himself in stand-up comedy, Carey eventually gained popularity starring on his own sitcom, The Drew Carey Show, and serving as host of the U.S. version of the improv comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, both of which aired on ABC.

Carey has appeared in several films, television series, music videos, a made-for-television film, and a computer game. As of 2012, he hosts the television game show The Price Is Right. He is interested in a variety of sports, has worked as a photographer at U.S. National Team soccer games, is a minority owner of the Major League Soccer team Seattle Sounders FC and a member of the WWE Hall of Fame. Carey has written an autobiography, Dirty Jokes And Beer: Stories Of The Unrefined, detailing his early life and television career.

Early life[link]

Carey in his U.S. Marine Corps uniform, with rank insignia of a Corporal

Carey was the youngest of Lewis and Beulah Carey's three sons and raised in the Old Brooklyn neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio.^[1] When he was eight years old, his father died from a brain tumor.^[2][3] According to his autobiography, he was born with six toes on his right foot and he played the cornet and trumpet in the marching band of James Ford Rhodes High School, from which he graduated in 1975.^[4] Drew is of Scottish heritage from both parents.^{[citation needed]}

He continued on to college at Kent State University (KSU) and was expelled twice for poor academic performance. He left KSU after three years, but not before becoming a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity. After leaving the university, Carey enlisted into the United States Marine Corps Reserve in 1980 and served for six years.^[1] He relocated to Las Vegas for a few months in 1982, and for a short time worked as a bank teller and a waiter at Denny's.^[1][3]

Stand-up career[link]

In 1985, he began his comedy career by following up on a suggestion by David Lawrence (a disc jockey friend who had been paying Drew to write jokes for David's radio show in Cleveland) to go to the library and borrow books on how to write jokes.^[5][6] The following year, after winning an open-microphone contest, he became Master of Ceremonies at the Cleveland Comedy Club.^[2] He performed at multiple comedy clubs over the next few years in both Cleveland and Los Angeles. He was first brought to the national eye as a comedian when he competed in the 1988 Star Search.^[7] Carey was working as a stand-up comedian when he appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in November 1991.^[8] His performance that night impressed Carson, who invited Carey to the couch next to his desk; this was considered a rare honor for any comedian.^[5][9] In that same year, Carey joined the 14th Annual Young Comedians Special on HBO and made his first appearance on Late Night with David Letterman.^[10] In 1994, Carey wrote his own stand-up comedy special which aired on Showtime, entitled Drew Carey: Human Cartoon, for which he won a CableACE Award for Best Writing.^[11]

Acting career[link]

Early roles[link]

Following on the success of his early stand-up career, he subsequently appeared in a number of supporting roles on television shows, during which he developed the character of a hapless middle-class bachelor. In 1993, Carey had a small role in the film Coneheads as a taxi passenger. Turning his attention to television, in 1994, Carey co-starred with John Caponera in The Good Life, a short-lived sitcom that aired on NBC.^[12] After the show's cancellation, Carey joined up with writer Bruce Helford (who was also a writer for The Good Life), who gave Carey a job as a consultant for the television show Someone Like Me.^[13]

[edit] The Drew Carey Show

After their stint on Someone Like Me, Carey and Helford developed and produced the storyline for The Drew Carey Show. The sitcom revolved around a fictionalized version of Carey, as he took on the stresses of life and work with his group of childhood friends. The show premiered on September 13, 1995 on ABC. In his autobiography, Carey revealed his frustration with having to deal with censors and being unable to employ the off-color humor common in his stand-up routines.^[4] Carey initially earned $60,000 per episode in the first seasons, then renegotiated for $300,000.^[14] By the final season, he was earning $750,000 per episode.^[15] The show had high ratings for its first few seasons, but declining ratings and increasing production costs (around $3 million per episode) precipitated its cancellation.^[15][16] The program had a total of 233 episodes over its nine-year run and Carey was one of four actors to appear in every episode. The show starred (in order of episode appearances) Carey, Diedrich Bader, Kathy Kinney, Ryan Stiles (all in every episode); Craig Ferguson (starring role in seasons 2-8 and guest appearances in 9); Christa Miller (seasons 1-7); and Ian Gomez (semi-regular from seasons 1-9) and John Carroll Lynch (semi-regular from seasons 3/4-9).

Improv television[link]

While still starring in The Drew Carey Show, in 1998 Carey began hosting the American version of the improvisational comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway?. He would announce the improv guests, direct the games, and then would usually involve himself in the final game of the episode. The show ran for a total of 220 episodes until the show's cancellation in 2006. In 1998, the New York Friars' Club made Carey the newest inductee of the group's Comedy Central Roast. His friend Ryan Stiles (who costarred in The Drew Carey Show and Whose Line Is It Anyway?) served as the roastmaster.^[17] Carey's income from Whose Line Is It Anyway? and The Drew Carey Show led to his inclusion on the Forbes list of highest-paid entertainers of 1998, at 24th with $45.5 million.^[18]

For the WB's 2004-2005 prime time schedule, Carey co-produced and starred in Drew Carey's Green Screen Show, a spin-off of Whose Line Is It Anyway?.^[19] It was canceled by the WB, but picked up shortly afterward by Comedy Central.^[20] The show's premise relied on the use of a green screen for all of the actors' improv interactions. Animation on the screen was inserted during post-production.

On November 18, 2010, the Game Show Network announced that Drew Carey would host a new improv show in primetime, called Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza. The show is filmed at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada and first aired on April 11, 2011.^[21] The show takes on the premise of Whose Line? and Drew Carey's Green Screen Show in that it features many of the same performers from both shows and they do improv based on audience-provided suggestions.

Improv All-Stars[link]

Carey was one of the founders of the Improv All-Stars, a group of eleven actors who perform in unscripted skits.^[22] The group joined Carey in all three of his improv shows, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Drew Carey's Green Screen Show, and Drew Carey's Improv-a-ganza and some members had major roles or guest starred on The Drew Carey Show.^[23] The Improv All-Stars travel on comedy tours, performing at comedy clubs throughout the United States.

Game show host[link]

[edit] Power of 10

Beginning in 2007, Carey began hosting game shows, beginning with his April selection as host of the CBS game show pilot Power of 10. The show ran from August 7, 2007 to April 7, 2008 and aired twice weekly during the late summer and early fall. Each game featured contestants predicting how a cross-section of Americans responded to questions covering a wide variety of topics in polls conducted by CBS.^[24]

[edit] The Price Is Right

After taping the pilot episode for Power of 10, Carey was contacted by CBS about replacing the retiring Bob Barker at The Price Is Right. After initially turning down the offer, Carey announced on Late Show with David Letterman that he would succeed Barker as host of the program beginning in the fall of 2007.^[25] His first episode of The Price Is Right was taped on August 15, and his shows began airing on October 15. In response to replacing Barker as host of the game show, Carey stated "You can't replace Bob Barker. I don't compare myself to anybody... It's only about what you're doing and supposed to do, and I feel like I'm supposed to be doing this."^[26] When Carey began hosting, the set, theme music, and show logo were updated. However, Carey kept the old closing line about spaying and neutering that originated with Barker, although his version uses slightly different wording. During Carey's second year as host, he began to write some of the sketches used during the Showcase, which features guest appearances by stars of other CBS programs.

Other roles and appearances[link]

Carey began appearing in commercials for restaurants in the late 1990s in Canada with The Great Root Bear, but his two-year contract with A&W Food Services of Canada was cut short in November 1998 after an episode of The Drew Carey Show featured McDonald's. As a result of his dismissal, Carey sued A&W for compensation.^[27]

Entrance to Sounds Dangerous! at Disney's Hollywood Studios

Disney's Hollywood Studios (then "Disney-MGM Studios"), part of Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, debuted a 12-minute attraction in 1999 titled Sounds Dangerous!.^[28] In the show, a camera follows Carey through a day as an undercover detective. When his video camera fails, the audience is left in complete darkness wearing earphones, following his adventure through sound cues. The attraction is presently^[when?] running on a limited "seasonal" schedule.

In 2000, Carey was given a cameo appearance in the House Party expansion pack of the computer game The Sims.^[29] To make him appear, the characters in the game must throw a successful party, which causes Carey to arrive in a limo and join the festivities. Carey is a fan of The Sims series and during one April Fool's episode of The Drew Carey Show, a scene takes place completely within The Sims.^[29][30] Carey made several other cameo appearances in music videos, including "Weird Al" Yankovic's "It's All About the Pentiums"^[31] and Fountains of Wayne's 2004 video for "Mexican Wine", giving an introduction to the video as if it were on a stage.^[32]

Although primarily known for his television work, Carey has done limited film work, with his first appearance in 1993's Coneheads. His next film was the 2000 television film, Geppetto that debuted on The Wonderful World of Disney. The film, an adaptation of Pinocchio, included actor Wayne Brady who had joined Carey on his improv shows.^[33] Carey took singing lessons to prepare for the role.^[3] In 2005, Carey appeared in three films: the animated film Robots, where he provided a voice-over for the character Crank; The Aristocrats where he retold a dirty joke along with other celebrities; and the documentary, Fuck, where he was interviewed.

Carey provided the entertainment for the 2002 Annual White House correspondents' dinner.^[10] Once Carey completed his standup routine for the 1,800 guests, President George W. Bush, noting Carey's improv work, made a joke of his own: "Drew? Got any interest in the Middle East?"^[34] In 2003, he joined Jamie Kennedy to host the WB's live special Play for a Billion.^[35] In September 2003, Carey led a group of comedians, including Blake Clark and The Drew Carey Show's Kathy Kinney, on a comedy tour of Iraq.^[36]

On June 8, 2006, Drew Carey's Sporting Adventures debuted on the Travel Channel. In this series, Carey traveled throughout Germany to photograph multiple FIFA World Cup soccer games while he immerses himself in the culture of the towns and states he visits.^[37] In early 2008, Carey appeared in Matt Groening's The Simpsons as part of the episode "All About Lisa" as a guest on the Krusty the Clown Show.

Writing[link]

Carey has routinely written throughout his career, including developing his stand-up comedy routines in his early stand-up career, and then moving on to assist in writing sitcoms. In 1997, Carey published his autobiography, Dirty Jokes and Beer: Stories of the Unrefined wherein he shared memories of his early childhood and of his father's death when he was eight. He also revealed that he was once molested, had suffered bouts of depression, and had made two suicide attempts by swallowing a large amount of sleeping pills.^[4] The book discusses his college fraternity years while attending Kent State University, and his professional career up to that time. The book featured large amounts of profanity and, as the title suggests, includes multiple dirty jokes (there is one at the start of each chapter) and references to beer. The book was featured on The New York Times bestseller list for three months.^[38]

Personal life[link]

He adopted his crew cut hair style while serving in the United States Marine Corps. Carey has had refractive surgery to correct his vision and therefore did not really require glasses (any glasses he wore in public were merely props to help the audience recognize him).^[39] However, while this was true for several years, on the May 17, 2006 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! he revealed that when he turned 40, he actually developed a need for bifocals. Carey currently^[when?] lives in Los Angeles and New York City.^[40]

On October 9, 2007 Carey proposed to Nicole Jaracz.^[41] In January 2012, it was reported that Carey and Jaracz had called off their engagement.^[42] She has appeared on The Price Is Right several times.^{[citation needed]}

After suffering chest pains while filming The Drew Carey Show in August 2001, Carey went to the hospital where he underwent a coronary angioplasty.^[43] Although his weight was a comedic topic throughout his sitcom and improv shows, in 2010 he began a diet and exercise plan, resulting in an extensive weight loss and elimination of his type-2 diabetes.^[44]

Political views[link]

Carey is an outspoken libertarian.^{[45][46][47][48]} He has expressed his political philosophy in the following terms, "I believe the answers to all the problems we face as a society won't come from Washington, it will come from us. So the way we decide to live our lives and our decisions about what we buy or don't buy are much more important than who we vote for."^[49]

Carey has expressed his distaste for the Bush administration's management of the War in Iraq, specifically on the September 15, 2007, episode of Real Time with Bill Maher. He made donations to Ron Paul's presidential campaign for the 2008 election.^[50] On the September 26, 2008 episode of The Late Late Show, Carey defined "libertarian" to host Craig Ferguson as "a conservative who still gets high."^[51]

Carey has spoken about his various political beliefs in several interviews and in 1998, he led a "smoke-in" in defiance of California's newly passed no-smoking ordinance inside bars and restaurants.^[52] Carey has hosted a series of mini-documentaries called The Drew Carey Project on Reason.tv, an online project of Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank.^[53] The first episode, "Gridlock", addresses private highway ownership and was released on October 15, 2007. Other episodes discuss topics such as eminent domain, urban traffic congestion, and medical marijuana.

Sports involvement[link]

Carey is a devoted fan of the U.S. National Soccer Team, Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Cleveland Indians. In 1999, Carey was part of the pregame ceremonies at the first game of the return of the Cleveland Browns, televised on ESPN.^[18] Carey attended the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany and the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Carey is a minority owner of the Seattle Sounders FC, who began play in Major League Soccer on March 19, 2009. Carey is a fan of FC Barcelona and of the Scottish team Rangers.^[54] In 2006 he was a season ticket holder for the Los Angeles Galaxy.^[55]

Carey preparing for a TV broadcast at the dedication of Cleveland Browns Stadium, September 1999

Carey has shown his support for the Indians by throwing the first pitch at an August 12, 2006 game against the Kansas City Royals. He was rewarded by the Cleveland Indians for being "the greatest Indians fan alive" with a personal bobblehead doll made in his likeness that was given to fans. Carey responded to his bobblehead likeness by saying "Bobblehead Day, for me, is as big as getting a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame."^[56]

In 2001, Carey was the first television actor to enter World Wrestling Entertainment's 30-man "Royal Rumble" match, which he did to promote an improv comedy pay-per-view at the time. He appeared in a few backstage segments before his brief participation in the match. Upon entering the ring, Carey stood unopposed for more than half a minute, but after the next entrant Kane refused a monetary bribe, Carey eliminated himself from the match by jumping over the top rope and retreated from ringside.^[57] On April 2, 2011 Carey was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame by Kane.^[58]

Carey competed against five other celebrities in the first celebrity edition of the 2003 World Poker Tour. He placed fifth, only beating out actor Jack Black. Carey won $2,000 for his charity.^[59]

On May 15, 2011, Carey completed the "Marine Corps Historic Half Marathon" in 1:57:02, then on September 4, 2011, he improved to complete the Disneyland Half Marathon in 1:50:46.

On October 30, 2011, Carey finished the Marine Corps Marathon with a chip time of: 4:37:11 and placed 10149th out of 20940.

Philanthropy[link]

Carey at the World Cup Fest in Kaiserslautern, Germany in June 2006 while filming Drew Carey's Sporting Adventures

Carey is a supporter of libraries, crediting them for beginning his successful comedy career. On May 2, 2000, in a celebrity edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, he selected the Ohio Library Foundation to receive his $500,000 winnings.^[60] He later went on to win an additional $32,000 on the second celebrity Millionaire, making him one of the biggest winning contestants on Millionaire who did not win the top prize. Carey also has played on the World Poker Tour in the Hollywood Home games for the Cleveland Public Library charity.^[61] In June 2007, Carey offered to donate up to $100,000 (in $10,000 increments) to the Mooch Myernick Memorial Fund if anybody could beat him at the video game FIFA Soccer 07 for the Xbox 360. He dared five players from both the U.S. Men's and Women's National Teams to compete against him.^[62] Carey ended up donating $100,000 plus $60,000 for losing two games out of the six games he played.^[63]

In October 2009, Carey made a bid of $25,000 in a charity auction for the @drew Twitter account. He later increased his offer to $100,000 if the number of followers of his account @DrewFromTV reached 100,000 by the end of the auction.^[64] In an interview with CBS News, he announced that he would instead donate $1 million to the charity LIVESTRONG Foundation if his follower count reached one million by December 31, 2009.^[65]

Photography[link]

Carey can sometimes be seen on the sidelines of U.S. National Team soccer games as a press photographer.^[66] His images are sold via wire services under the pseudonym Brooks Parkenridge.^[55] He was at the 2006 FIFA World Cup in the summer of 2006, for his television show Drew Carey's Sporting Adventures.

Awards and honors[link]

Carey's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

• Carey won the Cable Ace Award for Best Writing for his work on Drew Carey: Human Cartoon.^[10]
• In 1995, he was named one of the "10 Hottest New Faces of '95" by TV Guide.^[1]
• Carey received an honorary DHL from Cleveland State University in 2000.^[67]
• He won the People's Choice Award for Favorite Male Television Performer for his work in The Drew Carey Show, in both 2000 and 2001.^[68]
• On February 21, 2003, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.^[69] His star can be found at 6664 Hollywood Blvd.
• In 2004, he was ranked 84th on Comedy Central's list of the 100 greatest stand-ups of all time.^[70]
• On June 21, 2008 Carey won second place from the Los Angeles Press Club for his feature on medical marijuana in the multimedia package category.^[71]
• On June 26, 2011 Carey shared the award for "Best Advocacy Journalism" with Reason.tv Editor Nick Gillespie and Paul Feine at the 53rd Annual Southern California Journalism Awards.^[72]

Filmography[link]

Carey has starred in only a few television shows and films, but also has numerous guest star appearances in a variety of sitcoms and comedy shows.

Television work[link]

Films[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Drew Carey

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Drew Carey

Wikinews has related news: Drew Carey to replace Bob Barker as host of "The Price is Right"

• Drew Carey on Twitter
• Drew Carey's blog
• Drew Carey at the Internet Movie Database
• Drew Carey and the Improv All-Stars
• Drew Carey's WWE Hall of Fame Profile
• Reason Foundation Official site

v t e Whose Line Is It Anyway? UK version Host Clive Anderson Regular contestants Chip Esten Stephen Frost Stephen Fry Josie Lawrence Mike McShane Paul Merton Colin Mochrie Greg Proops John Sessions Brad Sherwood Tony Slattery Steve Steen Ryan Stiles Jim Sweeney Sandi Toksvig Caroline Quentin Musicians Colin Sell Richard Vranch Laura Hall Win Meyerson US version Host Drew Carey Regular contestants Wayne Brady Chip Esten Kathy Greenwood Colin Mochrie Greg Proops Brad Sherwood Denny Siegel Ryan Stiles Jeff Davis Musicians Laura Hall Linda Taylor Cece Worrall-Ruben Related topics List of UK episodes List of US episodes List of games Drew Carey's Green Screen Show (List of episodes) Mock the Week Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza (List of episodes)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2012)

Alice Cooper
Cooper at the Scream Awards, 2007
Background information
Birth name	Vincent Damon Furnier
Born	(1948-02-04) February 4, 1948 (age 64) Detroit, Michigan, United States
Genres	Rock, hard rock, heavy metal, shock rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, actor, DJ
Instruments	Vocals, harmonica, guitar
Years active	1964–present
Labels	Straight, Warner Bros., Atlantic, MCA, Epic, Spitfire, Eagle, New West
Website	www.alicecooper.com

Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier; February 4, 1948)^[1] is an American rock singer, songwriter, and musician whose career spans more than four decades. With a stage show that features guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, boa constrictors, and baby dolls, Cooper has drawn equally from horror movies, vaudeville, and garage rock to pioneer a grandly theatrical and violent brand of heavy metal designed to shock.^[2]

Originating in Detroit in the late 1960s, Alice Cooper was originally a band consisting of Furnier on vocals and harmonica, lead guitarist Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce on rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar, and drummer Neal Smith. The original Alice Cooper band broke into the international music mainstream with the 1971 hit "I'm Eighteen" from the album Love It to Death, which was followed by the even bigger single "School's Out" in 1972. The band reached their commercial peak with the 1973 album Billion Dollar Babies.

Furnier's solo career as Alice Cooper, adopting the band's name as his own name, began with the 1975 concept album Welcome to My Nightmare; in 2011 he released Welcome 2 My Nightmare, his 19th album as a solo artist, and his 26th album in total. Expanding from his Detroit rock roots, in his career Cooper has experimented with a number of musical styles, including conceptual rock, art rock, hard rock, New Wave, pop rock, experimental rock and industrial rock.

Alice Cooper is known for his social and witty persona offstage; The Rolling Stone Album Guide has called him the world's most "beloved heavy metal entertainer".^[3] Cooper is credited with helping to shape the sound and look of heavy metal, and he is regarded as being the artist who "first introduced horror imagery to rock'n'roll, and whose stagecraft and showmanship have permanently transformed the genre".^[4] Away from music, Cooper is a film actor, a golfing celebrity, a restaurateur and, since 2004, a popular radio DJ with his classic rock show Nights with Alice Cooper.

In 2011 the original Alice Cooper band was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.^[5]

Early life[link]

Cooper was born as Vincent Damon Furnier in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Ella Mae (née McCart) and Ether Moroni Furnier. His father was a lay preacher in the Church of Jesus Christ (also known as the Bickertonite Church) which, historically, is a branch of the Latter Day Saint movement.^[6] He has French Huguenot, Sioux Native American, English, Scottish, and Irish ancestry,^[7] and was named after one of his uncles (Vincent Collier Furnier) and the writer Damon Runyon.^[8] His paternal grandfather, Thurman Sylvester Furnier, was an apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite). Vincent Furnier was active in his church at the ages of 11 and 12.^[9][10]

While growing up in Detroit, Furnier attended Washington Elementary School, then Nankin Mills Jr. High, now Lutheran High School Westland. Following a series of childhood illnesses, Furnier moved with his family to Phoenix, Arizona, where he attended Cortez High School in north Phoenix.^[11] Vincent had gained admission into the University of Arizona, University of Colorado and University of California-Davis – he declined all these offers.^{[citation needed]}

Recording career[link]

1960s[link]

In 1964 sixteen year-old Furnier was eager to take part in the local annual letterman's talent show, so he gathered fellow cross-country teammates to form a group for the show.^[12] They named themselves The Earwigs. Because they did not know how to play any instruments at the time, they dressed up like The Beatles and mimed their performance to Beatles songs. As a result of winning the talent show and loving the experience of being onstage, the group immediately proceeded to learn how to play instruments they acquired from a local pawn shop. They soon renamed themselves The Spiders, featuring Furnier on vocals, Glen Buxton on lead guitar, John Tatum on rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar and John Speer on drums.^{[citation needed]} Musically, the group was inspired by artists such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks, The Doors and The Yardbirds. For the next year the band performed regularly around the Phoenix area with a huge black spider's web as their backdrop, the group's first stage prop. In 1965 they recorded their first single, "Why Don't You Love Me" (originally performed by The Blackwells), with Furnier learning the harmonica for the song.^{[citation needed]}

In 1966 The Spiders graduated from high school, and after North High School footballer Michael Bruce replaced John Tatum on rhythm guitar, the band scored a local No. 1 radio hit with "Don't Blow Your Mind", an original composition from their second single release. By 1967 the band had begun to make regular road trips to Los Angeles to play shows. They soon renamed themselves The Nazz and released the single "Wonder Who's Lovin' Her Now", backed with future Alice Cooper track "Lay Down And Die, Goodbye". At around this time drummer John Speer was replaced by Neal Smith. By the end of the year the band had relocated to Los Angeles.^{[citation needed]}

In 1968 upon learning that Todd Rundgren also had a band called Nazz, the band was again in need of another stage name. Believing that the group needed a gimmick to succeed, and that other bands were not exploiting the showmanship potential of the stage, Furnier chose "Alice Cooper" as the band's name and adopted this stage name as his own. Cooper later stated that the name change was one of his most important and successful career moves.^[13]

Nonetheless, at the time Cooper and the band realized that the concept of a male playing the role of a villain, a woman killer, in tattered women's clothing and wearing make-up, would have the potential to cause considerable social controversy and grab headlines. In 2007 in his book Alice Cooper, Golf Monster Cooper stated that his look was inspired in part by film. One of the band's all-time favorite movies was What Ever Happened to Baby Jane 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. "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".^[14]

The classic Alice Cooper group line-up consisted of singer Alice Cooper (Vincent 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 album School's Out), all of the band members were on the Cortez High School cross-country team, and many of Cooper's stage effects were inspired by their cross-country coach, Emmett Smith^[15] (one of Smith's class projects was to build a working guillotine for slicing watermelons). 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.^{[citation needed]}

One night after an unsuccessful gig at the Cheetah club in Venice, California, 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 ironically 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 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.^[16][17]

Cooper's first album Pretties for You (released in 1969) had a slight psychedelic feel. Although it touched the US charts for one week at No. 193, it was ultimately a critical and commercial failure.

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 around farm animals, Cooper presumed that, because the chicken had wings, it would be able to fly.^[18] 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 disabled people in wheelchairs, who reportedly proceeded to tear the bird to pieces.^[19]

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",^[20] obviously recognizing that such publicity would be priceless for the band.^[21]

The band have later claimed that this period was highly influenced by Pink Floyd, and especially the album Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Glen Buxton could listen to Syd Barrett's guitar for hours at a time.^[22]

1970s[link]

Despite the publicity from the Chicken Incident, the band's second album, Easy Action, released in June 1970, met with the same fate as its predecessor. At around this time the band, fed up with Californians' indifference to their act, relocated to Cooper's birthplace, Detroit, where their bizarre stage act was much better received by the crowds of the Midwest states who were accustomed to the similar hard rock styles of local bands such as The Stooges and The MC5. Despite this, Cooper still managed to receive a cream pie in the face when performing at the Cincinnati Pop Festival. Detroit would remain their steady home base until 1972. "L.A. just didn’t get it," Cooper stated. "They were all on the wrong drug for us. They were on acid and we were basically drinking beer. We fit much more in Detroit than we did anywhere else."^[23]

Alice Cooper appeared at the Woodstock-esque, Strawberry Fields Festival near Toronto, Ontario in August 1970. The band's mix of glam and increasingly violent stage theatrics stood out in stark contrast to the bearded, denim-clad hippie bands of the time.^[24] As Cooper himself stated: "We were into fun, sex, death and money when everybody was into peace and love. We wanted to see what was next. It turned out we were next, and we drove a stake through the heart of the Love Generation".^[25]

In autumn 1970 the Alice Cooper group teamed with producer Bob Ezrin for the recording of their third 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.^{[citation needed]}

Love It to Death proved to be their breakthrough album, reaching number 35 on the U.S. Billboard 200 album charts. It would be the first of eleven^[26] Alice Cooper group and solo albums produced by Ezrin, who is widely seen as being instrumental in helping to create and develop the band's definitive sound.^[27]

The group's 1971 tour featured a stage show involving mock fights and gothic torture modes being imposed on Cooper climaxing with a staged execution by electric chair, with the band sporting tight, sequined, and 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 David Bowie), provided enough encouragement for Warner Bros. to offer the band a new multi-album contract.

Their follow-up album Killer, released in late 1971, continued the commercial success of Love It to Death and included further single success with "Under My Wheels", "Be My Lover" in early 1972, and "Halo of Flies" which became a Top 10 hit in the Netherlands in 1972. Thematically, Killer expanded on the villainous side of Cooper's androgynous stage role, with its music becoming the soundtrack to the group's morality-based stage show, which by then featured a boa constrictor hugging Cooper on-stage, the murderous axe chopping of bloodied baby dolls, and execution by hanging at the gallows. Back then, the real criticism was aimed at questioning the artists' sexual ambiguity, rather than the stage gore.^{[citation needed]} In January 1972, Cooper was again asked about his peculiar name, and told talk show hostess Dinah Shore that he took the name from a "Mayberry RFD" character.^{[citation needed]}

The summer of 1972 saw the release of the single "School's Out". It went Top 10 in the US, was a No. 1 single in the UK, and remains a staple on classic rock radio to this day. The album School's Out reached No. 2 on the US charts and sold over a million copies. The band now relocated to their new mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut.^[28] With Cooper's on-stage androgynous persona completely replaced with brattiness and machismo, the band solidified their success with subsequent tours in the US and Europe, and won over devoted fans in droves while at the same time horrifying parents and outraging the social establishment.^{[citation needed]} In the United Kingdom, Mary Whitehouse, a well-known campaigner for values of morality and decency, succeeded in having the BBC ban the video for "School's Out"^{[citation needed]} and Member of Parliament Leo Abse petitioned Home Secretary Reginald Maudling to have the group banned altogether from performing in the country.^[29]

In February 1973 Billion Dollar Babies was released worldwide and became the band's most commercially successful 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.^{[citation needed]} The title track, featuring guest vocals by Donovan, was also a US hit single. Around this time Glen Buxton left Alice Cooper briefly due to his waning health.

The group in 1973.

With a string of successful concept albums and several hit singles, the band continued their gruelling schedule and toured the US once again. Continued attempts by politicians and pressure groups to ban their shocking act only served to fuel the myth of Alice Cooper further and generate even greater public interest.^{[citation needed]} 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. 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, and Cooper, who was under the constant pressure of getting into character for that night's show, was consistently sighted nursing a can of beer.

Muscle of Love, released at the end of 1973, was to be the last studio album from the classic line-up, 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 movie The Man with the Golden Gun, but a different song of the same name by Lulu was chosen instead. By 1974, the Muscle of Love album had not matched the top-charting success of its predecessor, and the band began to have constant disagreements. For various reasons the band decided to take a hiatus.

During this time Cooper relocated back to Los Angeles and started appearing regularly on TV shows such as Hollywood Squares, and Warner Bros. released the Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits compilation album. It featured classic style artwork and reached the US Top 10, performing better than Muscle of Love. However, the band's 1974 feature film Good to See You Again, Alice Cooper (consisting mainly of 1973 concert footage with 'comedic' sketches woven throughout to a faint storyline), released on a minor theatrical run mostly to drive-in theaters, saw little box office success.

In 1975 Alice released his first solo album, Welcome to My Nightmare. To avoid legal complications over ownership of the group name, Alice Cooper had by then become the singer's new legal name. The success of the solo album marked the final break with the original members of the band with Cooper collaborating with their producer Bob Ezrin, who recruited Lou Reed's backing band, including guitarists Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter, to play on the album. Spearheaded by the US Top 20 hit ballad, "Only Women Bleed", the album was released by Atlantic Records in March of that year and became a Top 10 hit for Cooper. It was a concept album that was based on the nightmare of a child named Steven, featuring narration by classic horror movie film star Vincent Price (who several years after Welcome to My Nightmare guested on Michael Jackson's "Thriller"), and serving as the soundtrack to Cooper's new stage show, which now included more theatrics than ever (including an 8-foot-tall (2.4 m) furry Cyclops which Cooper decapitates and kills).

Cooper (second from right) laughs at Mae West's words after the opening of her last movie in 1978.

By this time, however, alcohol was clearly affecting Cooper's performances. During the Welcome to My Nightmare tour in Vancouver, and only a few songs into the routine, Cooper tripped over a foot-light, staggered a few paces, lost his bearings, and plunged head-first off the stage and onto the concrete floor of the Pacific Coliseum. Some fans, thinking it was all part of the act, reached through the barriers to pull at his blood-matted hair before bouncers could pull him away for help. He was taken to a local hospital, where medical staff stitched his head wound and provided him with a skullcap. Cooper returned to the venue a couple of hours later and tried to perform two more songs, but within minutes he had to call it a night.

Accompanying the album and stage show was the TV 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 Awards nomination for Best Long Form Music Video) was regarded as another groundbreaking moment in rock history. Adding to all that, a concert film, also called Welcome to My Nightmare produced, directed and choreographed by the West Side Story cast member David Winters and filmed live at London's Wembley Arena in September 1975, was released to theaters in 1976.^[30][31] Though it failed at the box office, it later became a midnight movie favorite and a cult classic.

Such was the immense success of Cooper's solo project that he decided to continue alone as a solo artist, and the original band became officially defunct. It was also during this time that Cooper co-founded the legendary drinking club The Hollywood Vampires.

Cooper in 1978.

Following the 1976 US No. 12 ballad hit "I Never Cry";^[32] two albums, Alice Cooper Goes to Hell and Lace and Whiskey; and the 1977 US No. 9 ballad hit "You and Me", it became clear from many performances during his 1977 US tour that Cooper was in dire need of help with his alcoholism (at his alcoholic peak it was rumored that Cooper was consuming up to two cases of Budweiser and a bottle of whiskey a day). Following the tour, Cooper had himself hospitalized in a New York sanitarium for treatment, during which time the live album The Alice Cooper Show was released.

In 1978 a sobered Cooper used his experience in the sanitarium as the inspiration for the semi-autobiographical album From the Inside, which he co-wrote with Bernie Taupin. The release spawned another US Top 20 hit "How You Gonna See Me Now", yet another ballad. 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 and Gonzo into selling their souls). He also appeared in an against-typecasting role as a piano-playing disco bellboy 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 California. Cooper himself contributed over $27,000 to the project, buying an O in the sign in memory of friend and comedian Groucho Marx.

1980s[link]

Cooper's albums from the beginning of the 1980s, Flush the Fashion, Special Forces, Zipper Catches Skin and DaDa, were not as commercially successful as his past releases. Flush the Fashion, produced by Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker, had a thick, edgy New Wave musical sound that baffled even long-time fans, though it still yielded the US Top 40 hit "(We're All) Clones". The album Special Forces featured a more aggressive but consistent form of New Wave style, and included a new version of "Generation Landslide". The following album, Zipper Catches Skin was a more power pop-oriented recording, with lots of quirky high-energy guitar-driven songs. While those three albums engaged the experimental New Wave sound with energetic results, 1983 marked the return collaboration of producer Bob Ezrin and guitarist Dick Wagner with the haunting epic DaDa, the final album in his Warner Bros. contract.

In 1983 after the recording of DaDa, Cooper was re-hospitalized for alcoholism. In a deathly state of health he moved back to Phoenix to save his marriage from collapse, and so that he could receive the support of family and friends. Cooper was finally clean and sober 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, so in 1984 Cooper became a "free agent" for the first time in his career.

After over a year on hiatus, during which time he spent being a full-time father, perfecting his golf swing every day on the golf course, and finding time to star in the Spanish B-grade horror movie production Monster Dog, Cooper sought to pick up the pieces of his musical career. 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 video was made for the song, featuring Cooper donning his black snake-eyes make-up for the first time since 1979. But any publicity it may have generated toward Cooper's return to the music scene was cut short as the video was promptly banned because of its graphically gory make-up (by Tom Savini), and because of the innumerable zombies in the video and their insatiable appetite for gorging on human flesh.

In 1986 Alice Cooper officially returned to the music industry with the 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 of 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 (for the first time since the 1982 Special Forces tour) a triumphant return to the road, on a tour appropriately entitled The Nightmare Returns. The Detroit leg of this tour, which took place at the end of October 1986during Halloween, was captured on film as The Nightmare Returns, and is viewed by some as being the definitive Alice Cooper concert film.^[33] The concert, which received rave reviews in the rock music press,^[34] 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 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 Britain Labour M.P. David Blunkett called for the show to be banned, saying "I'm horrified by his behaviour – it goes beyond the bounds of entertainment" (even though Blunkett has been blind from birth).^[35] The controversy spilled over into the German segment of the tour, with the German government actually succeeding in having some of the gorier segments of the performance removed.^[36] It was also during the London leg of the tour that Cooper met with a near fatal accident during the hanging execution sequence at the end of the show.^[37]

Constrictor and Raise Your Fist and Yell were recorded with lead guitarist Kane Roberts and bassist Kip Winger, both of whom would leave the band by the end of 1988 (although Kane Roberts played guitar on "Bed of Nails" on 1989's album Trash).

In 1987 Cooper made a brief appearance as a vagrant in the horror movie Prince of Darkness, directed by John Carpenter. His role had no lines and consisted of generally menacing the protagonists before eventually impaling one of them with a bicycle frame. Cooper also appeared at WrestleMania III, escorting wrestler Jake 'The Snake' Roberts to the ring. After the match was over, Cooper got involved and threw Jake's snake Damien at The Honky Tonk Man's manager Jimmy Hart. Jake considered the involvement of Cooper to be an honor, as he had idolized Cooper in his youth and was still a huge fan.

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 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.

1990s[link]

1991 saw the release of Cooper's 19th studio album, Hey Stoopid, again featuring several of rock music’s glitterati 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 moralisation to such good effect throughout his career.^[38] 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".^[39]

By the early 1990s Cooper had become a genuine cultural icon, guesting on records by the most successful bands of the time, such as the Guns N' Roses album Use Your Illusion I, on which he shared vocal duties with Axl Rose on the track "The Garden"; making a brief appearance as the abusive stepfather of Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare On Elm Street film Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991).

Cooper made a famous cameo appearance in the 1992 hit comedy film Wayne's World. Cooper and his band first appear onstage performing "Feed My Frankenstein" from Hey Stoopid. Afterwards at a backstage party, the movie's main characters Wayne and Garth discover that when offstage Cooper is a calm, articulate intellectual when he and his band discuss the history of Milwaukee in surprising depth. In a now famous scene, Wayne and Garth respond to an invitation to hang out with Cooper by kneeling and bowing reverently before him while chanting "We're not worthy! We're not worthy!"

In 1994 Cooper released The Last Temptation, his first concept album since DaDa. 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".^[40] 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, and his last studio release for six years, though during this period the live album A Fistful of Alice^[41] was released, and in 1997 he lent his voice to the first track of Insane Clown Posse's The Great Milenko. In 1999, the four-disc box set The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper appeared, which contained an authorized biography of Cooper, Alcohol and Razor Blades, Poison and Needles: The Glorious Wretched Excess of Alice Cooper, All-American, written by Creem magazine editor Jeffrey Morgan.

During his absence from the recording studio, Cooper toured extensively every year throughout the latter part of the 1990s, including, in 1996, South America, which he had not visited since 1974. Also in 1996, Cooper sang the role of Herod on the London cast recording of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar.^[42]

He also made an appearance on an episode of That 70s Show, at the end of which he and two other (minor) guest characters parody Dungeons & Dragons.

2000s[link]

Cooper in 2004 on a film set in L.A.

The first decade of the 21st century saw a sustained period of activity from Alice Cooper. In the decade that he turned sixty, he toured extensively and released (after a significant break) a steady stream of studio albums to favorable critical acclaim. During this period Cooper was also recognized and awarded in various ways: he received a Rock Immortal award at the 2007 Scream Awards;^[43] was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003;^[44] he received (in May 2004) an honorary doctoral degree from Grand Canyon University;^[45] was given (in May 2006) the key to the city of Alice, North Dakota;^[46] he won the living legend award at the 2006 Classic Rock Roll of Honour event;^[47] and he won the 2007 Mojo music magazine Hero Award.

The lengthy break between studio albums ended in 2000 with Brutal Planet, which was a return to horror-lined heavy metal, with industrial rock, and with subject matter thematically inspired by the brutality of the modern world, set in a dystopian post-apocalyptic future, and also inspired by a number of news stories that had recently appeared on the CNN news channel.^[48] The album was produced by Bob Marlett, with longtime Cooper production collaborator Bob Ezrin returning as executive producer. The accompanying world tour, which included Cooper's first concert in Russia, was a resounding success, introducing Alice Cooper to a new audience and producing the live home video, Brutally Live, in 2001. During one memorable episode in Brutally Live, Britney Spears (being played by Alice Cooper's real life daughter, Calico), and representing "everything that my audience hates – the softening of rock and roll...the sweetness of it" is executed by Cooper.

Brutal Planet was succeeded by the sonically similar and widely acclaimed sequel Dragontown, which saw Bob Ezrin back at the helm as producer. The album has been described as leading the listener down "a nightmarish path into the mind of rock's original conceptual storyteller"^[49] 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 personal faith perspective (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;^[50] however, Cooper has indicated that this in fact is not the case.^[51]

Cooper again adopted a leaner, cleaner sound for his critically acclaimed^[52] 2003 release The Eyes of Alice Cooper. Recognizing that many contemporary bands were having great success with his former sounds and styles, Cooper worked with a somewhat younger group of road and studio musicians who were very familiar with his oeuvre of old. However, instead of rehashing the old sounds, they updated them, often with surprisingly effective results. The resulting Bare Bones tour adopted a less-orchestrated performance style that had fewer theatrical flourishes and a greater emphasis on musicality. The success of this tour helped support the growing recognition that the classic Cooper songs were exceptionally clever, tuneful and unique.

Cooper's radio show, Nights with Alice Cooper, began airing on January 26, 2004 in several US cities. The program showcases classic rock, Cooper's personal stories about his life as a rock icon and interviews with prominent rock artists. The show is broadcast on nearly 100 stations in the US and Canada,^[53] and has also been broadcast all over the world. In 2005 Alice Cooper was inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends online Hall of Fame.^[54] Two of the hit recordings of the original Alice Cooper band have been voted Legendary Michigan Songs: "Eighteen" in 2008, and "School's Out" in 2009.^[55]

A continuation of the songwriting approach adopted on The Eyes of Alice Cooper was again adopted by Cooper for his 24th studio album, Dirty Diamonds, released in 2005. Dirty Diamonds became Cooper's highest charting album since 1994's The Last Temptation.^[56] The Dirty Diamonds tour launched in America in August 2005 after several European concerts, including a performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland on July 12. Cooper and his band, including Kiss drummer Eric Singer, were filmed for a DVD released as Alice Cooper: Live at Montreux 2005. One critic, in a review of the Montreux release, commented that Cooper was to be applauded for "still mining pretty much the same territory of teenage angst and rebellion" as he had done more than thirty years previously.^[57]

In December 2006 the original Alice Cooper band reunited to perform six classic Alice Cooper songs at Cooper's annual charity event in Phoenix, entitled "Christmas Pudding".^[58]

On July 1, 2007 Cooper performed a duet with Marilyn Manson at the B'Estival event in Bucharest, Romania.^[59] 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.^[48] Cooper and Manson have been the subject of an academic paper on the significance of adolescent antiheroes.^[60]

In January 2008 he was one of the guest singers on the new Avantasia album The Scarecrow, singing the 7th track, "The Toy Master". In July 2008, after lengthy delays, Cooper released Along Came a Spider, his 25th 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.^[61] 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".

2010s[link]

In January 2010, it was announced that Alice would be touring with Rob Zombie on the "Gruesome Twosome" tour.^[62] In May 2010, Cooper made an appearance during the beginning of the season finale of the reality-show American Idol, in which he sang "School's Out".^[63]

With his daughter and former band member Dick Wagner, Cooper scored the music for the indie horror flick Silas Gore.^[64]

During 2010, Cooper began working on a new album, dubbed Welcome 2 My Nightmare, a sequel to the original Welcome to My Nightmare.^[65] In a Radio Metal interview, he said that "We'll put some of the original people on it and add some new people [...] I'm very happy with working with Bob (Ezrin) again."^[65]

On December 15, 2010, it was announced Cooper and his former band would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The official Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony took place 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. Alice showed up for the event wearing a (presumably fake) blood-splattered shirt and had a live giant albino boa snake wrapped around his neck.^[5][66] 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".^[67]

On March 10, 2011, Jackson Browne, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Alice Cooper, Jennifer Warnes and others performed at a benefit concert in Tucson, Arizona benefiting The Fund for Civility, Respect and Understanding, a foundation that raises awareness about and provides medical prevention and treatment services to people with mental disorders.^[68] In June 2011 Cooper took his place in the Reasonably Priced Car at the BBC auto show Top Gear.^[69]

Cooper supported Iron Maiden on tour from June to July 21.^[70]

Style and influences[link]

During an interview for the program Entertainment USA in 1986 Cooper stunned interviewer Jonathan King by stating that The Yardbirds were his favorite band of all time.^[71] Perhaps King should not have been so taken aback, as 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.^[72] 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 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".

On the 25th anniversary DVD of Cabaret, Liza Minnelli stated that Cooper had told her that his whole career was based on the movie Cabaret.^{[citation needed]}

Evidence of Cooper's eclectic tastes in classic and contemporary rock music can be seen in the track listings of his radio show; in addition, when he appeared on the BBC Radio 2 program Tracks of My Years in September 2007, he listed his favorite tracks of all time as being: "19th Nervous Breakdown" (1966) by The Rolling Stones; "Turning Japanese" (1980) by The Vapors; "My Sharona" (1979) by The Knack; "Beds Are Burning" (1987) by Midnight Oil; "My Generation" (1965) by The Who; "Welcome to the Jungle" (1987) by Guns N' Roses; "Rebel Rebel" (1974) by David Bowie; "Over Under Sideways Down" (1966) by The Yardbirds; "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" (2003) by Jet; and "A Hard Day's Night" (1964) by The Beatles,^[73] and when he appeared on Desert Island Discs in 2010 he chose the songs "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" by The Yardbirds; "I Get Around" by The Beach Boys; "I'm a Boy" by The Who; "Timer" by Laura Nyro; "21st Century Schizoid Man" by King Crimson; "Been Caught Stealing" by Jane's Addiction; "Work Song" by The Paul Butterfield Blues Band and "Ballad of a Thin Man" by Bob Dylan.^[74]

Rob Zombie, former front man of White Zombie, claims his first "metal moment" was seeing Alice Cooper on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert.^[75] Zombie has also claimed to have been heavily influenced by Cooper's costumes.^[76]

In a 1978 interview with Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan stated, "I think Alice Cooper is an overlooked songwriter".^[77]

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 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".^[78][79]

The Flaming Lips are longtime Alice Cooper fans and used the bass line from "Levity Ball" (an early song from the 1969 release Pretties for You) for their song "The Ceiling Is Bending". They also covered "Sun Arise" for an Alice Cooper tribute album. (Cooper's version, which closes the album Love It to Death, was itself a cover of a Rolf Harris song.)

In 1999 Cleopatra Records released Humanary Stew: A Tribute to Alice Cooper featuring a number of contributions from rock and metal all-star collaborations, including Dave Mustaine, Roger Daltrey, Ronnie James Dio, Slash, Bruce Dickinson, and Steve Jones.^[80] The album was notable for the fact that it was possible to assemble a different supergroup for each cover version on the record, which gave an indication of the depth of esteem in which Cooper is held by other eminent musicians within the music industry.

A song by alternative rock group They Might Be Giants from their 1994 album John Henry entitled "Why Must I Be Sad?" mentions 13 Cooper songs, and has been described as being "from the perspective of a kid who hears all of his unspoken sadness given voice in the music of Alice Cooper; Alice says everything the kid has been wishing he could say about his alienated, frustrated, teenage world".^[81]

Such unlikely non-musician fans of Cooper included Groucho Marx and Mae West, who both reportedly saw the early shows as a form of vaudeville revue,^[82] and artist Salvador Dalí, who on attending a show in 1973 described it as being surreal, and made a hologram, First Cylindric Chromo-Hologram Portrait of Alice Cooper's Brain.^[83][84]

Personal life[link]

Cooper, a huge fan of The Simpsons, was asked to contribute a storyline for the September 2004 edition of Bongo Comics's Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror, a special Monsters of Rock issue that also included stories plotted by Gene Simmons, Rob Zombie and Pat Boone.^[85] Cooper's story featured Homer Simpson being a Jason Voorhees, Friday the 13th style killer and Alice and the citizens of Springfield are being stalked by Homer.

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 Television's Enough Rope. Cooper discussed various issues during a revealing and frank talk, including the horrors of acute alcoholism and his subsequent cure, being a Christian, and his social and work relationship with his family.^[86] During the interview, Cooper remarked "I look at Mick Jagger and he's on an 18-month tour and he's six [sic] 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."^[87]

The actual ownership of the Alice Cooper name is an example of the value of a single copyright or trademark. Since "Alice Cooper" was originally the name of the band, and not the lead singer (cf. Uriah Heep, Jethro Tull, Amy Meredith, etc.), and it was actually owned by the band as whole, Cooper paid, and continues to pay, a yearly royalty to his original bandmates for the right to use the name commercially.

Cooper is a fan of the NHL Phoenix Coyotes.^[88] 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.^[89]

Relationships and family[link]

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 actually recommended Zappa to the group, died on November 5, 1972 of an overdose.^[90]

Another long-time girlfriend of Cooper's was Cindy Lang, with whom he lived for several years. They separated in 1975. Lang sued Cooper for palimony, and they eventually settled out of court in the early 1980s.^[91][92]

After his separation from Lang, Cooper was briefly linked with actress Raquel Welch.^[93] Cooper then reportedly left Welch, however, to marry, on March 20, 1976, ballerina instructor/choreographer Sheryl Goddard, who performed in the Alice Cooper show from 1975 to 1982. In November 1983, at the height of Cooper's alcoholism, Sheryl filed for divorce, but by mid-1984, she and Cooper had reconciled.^[94] The couple has remained together since. In a 2002 television interview, Cooper claimed that he had "never cheated" on his wife in all the time they had been together. In the same interview, he also claimed that the secret to a lasting and successful relationship is to continue going out on dates with your partner.^[95] The couple have three children: elder daughter Calico Cooper (born 1981), an actress and singer who has been performing in the Alice Cooper show since 2000; son Dash (b. 1985), a student at Arizona State University, and also plays in a band called Runaway Phoenix; and younger daughter Sonora Rose (b. 1993).

Drug recovery[link]

In 1986, Megadeth was asked to open for Cooper for dates on his US Constrictor tour. After noticing the hardcore abuse of alcohol and other drugs in the band, Cooper personally approached the band members to try to help them control their abuse, and he has stayed close to front man Dave Mustaine, who considers Cooper to be his "godfather".^[96] Since overcoming his own addiction to alcohol in the mid-1980s, Cooper has continued to help and counsel other rock musicians with addiction problems. "I've made myself very available to friends of mine – they're people who would call me late at night and say, 'Between you and me, I've got a problem.'"^[97] In recognition of the work he has done in helping other addicts in the recovery process, Cooper received in 2008 the Stevie Ray Vaughan Award at the fourth annual MusiCares MAP Fund benefit concert in Los Angeles.^[98]

Religion and politics[link]

Although he originally tended to shy away from speaking publicly about his religious beliefs, Cooper has in recent years been vocal about his faith as a born-again Christian.^[99]

Throughout his career, Cooper's philosophy regarding politics is that politics should not be mixed with rock music. He 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 on as long as I could to avoid politics. And I still feel that way".^[67] On occasion he has spoken out against musicians who promote or opine on politics; for example, in the run-up to the 2004 presidential election, he told the Canadian Press that the then crop of rock stars campaigning for and touring on behalf of Democratic candidate John Kerry were committing "treason against rock n' roll". He also added that upon seeing the list of musicians who supported Kerry, "if I wasn't already a Bush supporter, I would have immediately switched. Linda Ronstadt? Don Henley? Geez, that's a good reason right there to vote for Bush."^[100]

Love of golf[link]

Cooper has on several occasions credited golf as having played a major role in helping him to overcome his addiction to alcohol,^[101] and has even gone as far to say that when he took up golf, it was a case of replacing one addiction with another.^[102][103] The importance that the game has had in his life is also reflected in the title to his 2007 autobiography, Alice Cooper, Golf Monster.^[104] Cooper, who has participated in a number of Pro-Am competitions,^[105] plays the game six days a week, off a handicap of two.^[74] Since 1997 he has hosted an annual golf competition, the Alice Cooper Celebrity AM Golf Tournament, all proceeds from which go to his charity, the Solid Rock Foundation. In 2005 while playing with manager Shep Gordon on The Champion Course in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, Cooper recorded an impressive round of two-over par 74 on the world-class course. Cooper has also appeared in commercials for Callaway Golf equipment, was a guest of veteran British player and broadcaster Peter Alliss on A Golfer's Travels.^[106] He wrote the foreword to the Gary McCord book "Ryder Cup" and participated in the second All*Star Cup in South Wales.^[107] In an interview with VH1, friend and fellow golfer Pat Boone said that Cooper was "'this close' to being a pro".

Discography[link]

See: Alice Cooper discography

Awards and nominations[link]

Grammy Awards

Filmography[link]

See: Alice Cooper filmography

List of Alice Cooper band personnel[link]

Current

• Alice Cooper – vocals, guitar, harmonica (1963–present)
• Chuck Garric – bass guitar, vocals (2002–present)
• Ryan Roxie – guitar, vocals (1996–2006, 2012-presemt)
• Tommy Henriksen – guitar, vocals (2011–present)
• Orianthi – guitar, vocals (2011–present)
• Glen Sobel – drums, percussion (2011–present)

Past

Notes[link]