The Crazy Real-Life Story Of Alice Cooper

May 2024 ยท 2 minute read

The man who would become the godfather of shock rock was born Vincent Damon Furnier on February 4, 1948, in America's motor city, Detroit, Michigan. The second child of Ella and Ether "Mick" Furnier, young Vince, named for his uncle and author Damon Runyon, spent his early childhood in working-class east Detroit. His father worked a variety of jobs to make ends meet, including driving a taxi and selling used cars. Cooper's mother, a transplant from Glenmary, Tennessee, and the daughter of a moonshiner, was a homemaker and waitress.

A self-described "all-American kid," Alice Cooper grew up an avid baseball fan. In his 2007 memoir, Golf Monster, Cooper writes, "I lived for baseball. When the sun came up, I grabbed my glove and I was ready to play until the sun went down, when you couldn't see the ball anymore and it was time to rush home for dinner." The only downside to Alice's happy childhood were his frequent bouts of asthma. On doctor's orders, the Furniers left Detroit for the warmer, drier climes of Los Angeles. In 1961, Mick Furnier, now a minister in the Church of Jesus Christ, took a job with Goodyear Aerospace and moved his family to Phoenix, Arizona.

Teenage Cooper attended Phoenix's Cortez High School. Gregarious and popular, Cooper thrived at Cortez. With his asthma behind him, he became a star athlete. Accomplishing the unheard-of feat of making the varsity cross country team in his first year, Cooper graduated a four-year letterman.

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