LITTLE ROCK — No longer 18, but still maintaining his reputation as a shock rocker, Alice Cooper has also become one of rock music's elder statesmen.

How else to explain his position as a syndicated radio show host and a respected golfer who has published a book (Alice Cooper, Golf Monster) on the sport that's associated with Very Important People.

Cooper has played golf with some of the greats of comedy, from Groucho Marx to Jackie Gleason, Jerry Lewis, George Burns and Bob Hope.

"The guys I've played with, golf was the great common denominator between us," Cooper says while taking a break from a game somewhere in Maui. "I would give advice when I was asked something. I told George to 'relax that right hand,' and I told Bob to 'weaken your grip a bit.' President Ford was there sometimes, and all we were worried about was how do you get that ball in the hole?

"I mainly live in Phoenix and for about 10 years Glen Campbell and I would play twice a week. He's still one of my best buddies. We even got a ticket together, where they had taken a picture of us, speeding, and it was on the front page of the Phoenix paper. I was supposed to play with him that day he got arrested, the one where he had the famous mug shot. He had played a bunch, and then he drank about four double rum and Cokes. If I'd been there, I'd have driven him home and he would have been fine, since I quit drinking years ago."GOLFER EXTRAORDINAIRE Once famous for not just his rock show - and the word "show" was as essential to Cooper's road to fame and fortune as was the word "rock" - Cooper now has time to perform when he feels like it, as well as to indulge his love of golf and preside over one of Phoenix's best-known restaurants and watering holes, Cooper'stown Phoenix, next door to the city's America West Arena. Now his fellow rock stars can hang out at his place after their shows.

"We had one in Cleveland,also, but we got rid of that," Cooper says. "But we're going to open one in Detroit, which was my hometown, which is still a really good sports city and rock city. We have the best barbecue in Phoenix. We don't do fast food and it's surprisingly good."

Cooper, who was born Vincent Damon Furnier and will hit 60 Feb. 4, is enjoying his transition into middle age respectability, thanks to his classic rock radio show, Nights With Alice Cooper (which he has been doing since 2004). The show airs locally 7 p.m.-midnight Monday-Friday on KMJX-FM, 105.1.

He started working his way to stardom in 1965, at the height of Beatlemania, when he and some classmates in Phoenix - where he had grown up when his parents and he moved there from Detroit - entered a talent show, calling themselves The Earwigs and dressing up like The Beatles, and mimed some of their songs. Even though none of them could play an instrument, they won the contest, came down with a love for being onstage and the rest became rock history.

UNUSUAL THEATRICS

Eventually, Cooper surrounded himself with some like-minded classmates and even got advice from a journalism teacher on some theatrics they might employ to make a name for themselves. Frank Zappa, who was somewhat offbeat himself, was looking for unusual acts for his label and he found himself unable to resist the lure of a band that played psychedelic rock, but more importantly, had thegreat gift of getting headlines over irritating people - especially the parents of teenagers - a sure way to generate record sales, then and now.

The road to fame was not a smooth one, as it wasn't until the group's third album, Love It to Death, before the hits really began, thanks to "(I'm) Eighteen." The hits, as the saying goes, kept on coming throughout the 1970s: "School's Out," "Elected," "Hello Hurray," "No More Mr. Nice Guy," "Only Women," "I Never Cry," "You and Me" and "How You Gonna See Me Now." There was another hit in the summer of 1980, "Clones (We're All)."

In 1974, Cooper legally changed his name to "Alice Cooper," which previously had just been the name of the band. He also launched a solo career, as his bandmates drifted away. The long slog to stardom had taken its toll, and Cooper was hospitalized after a 1977 tour for treatment of alcoholism. He sought further treatment in 1983 and finally reached his current state of sobriety later that year.

Somewhere between treatments, Cooper joined the celebrities who appeared on the popular TV game show, Hollywood Squares. He recalls the time fondly.

HOLLYWOOD SQUARES

"I was wanting to put the character of Alice somewhere where he didn't belong," Cooper says, "and going on Hollywood Squares was akin to jamming him down America's throat. All the powers that be hated Alice, from government to parents and the church."

And his radio persona, which has won him new fans, is another calculated move into the mainstream.

"I'm like Hannibal Lector," he says. "I have two different faces, one on stage and one for radio. Back when I started, I just thought that rock 'n' roll didn't have a villain, so I created Alice to sort of be that phantom, to be that character that's the personification of rock 'n' roll villainy.

"Ironically, my show now is more vicious than it's ever been, so I don't know if I've adapted or if the world has adapted."

Despite his gruff exterior, Cooper has a soft heart when it comes to philanthropy. He started the Solid Rock Foundation to try to steer teenagers away from guns, drugs and gangs.

"We've raised $2 million so far and intend to put the center in the worst part of Phoenix, not in Scottsdale, but in the area that most needs it," he says.

The list of musicians who were inspired by Cooper's theatrics is a long one. It includes KISS, Marilyn Manson, David Bowie, Aerosmith, Prince, Twisted Sister, Cheap Trick, Rob Zombie, Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy & The Stooges and Motley Crue.

Backed by guitarists Keri Kelli and Jason Hook, drummer Eric Singer and bassist Chuck Garric, Cooper began The Psycho-Drama Tour today in Des Moines at the Iowa State Fair and is scheduled to perform Saturday at the Missouri State Fair in Sedalia before his Little Rock show Sunday night. He will continue to tour the United States until Oct. 31, then spend November in Great Britain with Motorhead and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.

ALICE COOPER

7:30 p.m. (gates open at 4) Sun

day, Riverfest Amphitheatre,

President Clinton Avenue at La-

Harpe Boulevard, Little Rock

Opening acts: Black Stone Cher

ry, Crooked X

Tickets: $30 advance, $35 day

of show

(501) 975-7575 www.ticket mas

ter.com or all Ticketmaster out

lets; RAO Video in Little Rock,

Jesters Tattoo in Cabot, One

Track Mind Hobby Shop in Ma

belvale and at www.magic105fm.

com

Weekend, Pages 65 on 08/10/2007