Posted on 04/19/2021 8:10:12 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Alice Cooper’s career is full of bizarre and colorful moments, yet few rival the night he met - and pointed a gun at - Elvis Presley.
The incident took place in 1970, when the shock rocker received an invitation seemingly out of nowhere.
“I got a thing that said, ‘Elvis wants to meet you,’” Cooper recalled decades later on the BBC TV series Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
Cooper was one of four people summoned to the King’s hotel room at the Las Vegas Hilton that night. As he recalled, the others were Liza Minnelli, Chubby Checker and porn star Linda Lovelace.
The group rode up in an elevator together and was searched for guns when they arrived on Presley's floor, “which was kind of silly, because there were guns everywhere once you got in,” Cooper noted.
Shortly afterward, the rocker was face to face with the King. “He goes, ‘Hey, man. You’re that cat with the snake, ain’t ya?’" Cooper recalled him asking. "I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘That’s cool, man. I wish I woulda thoughta that.’”
Moments later, Presley beckoned at Cooper to follow him into the kitchen. “He opens the drawer, takes out a loaded .38, snub nose .38, puts it in my hand and he says, ‘I’m gonna show you how to take this gun outta somebody’s hand.”
The surreal experience of holding a loaded gun, pointed at one of the biggest stars in the world, wasn’t lost on Cooper. “The little devil here on my shoulder says, ‘Shoot him,’” the rocker joked. “The little angel over here says, ‘Don’t kill him. Just wound him.’”
Cooper’s inner dialogue didn’t last long: “Before I could decide what to do, I was on the floor. And he had his boot on my throat. And I’m going, ‘Argh! That’s good, Elvis.’”
Despite their strange interaction, Cooper held nothing but admiration for the King. “He was an amazing character," he recalled. "Very funny guy. But he was Elvis.”
I had to give a cat away to a friend once, because of my snakes.
I was walking through the bedroom with the snake when that damn cat up and clawed the snake right across the face for no good reason.
If snakes didn’t have eye scales, he would’ve blinded him.
No sense in that.
“The incident took place in 1970, when the shock rocker received an invitation seemingly out of nowhere.”
Its my understanding that this took place in 1974. Not 1970. In 1970 both Alice Cooper and linda lovelace were still not yet household names. No one really heard of them in 1970. Alice would have his first hit about a year later and linda had not yet made deep throat.
And the reason linda got to meet Elvis (in 1974) was because her then boyfriend, David Winter, was Elvis’ movie and stage choreographer.
I used to have a neighbor that had a cat that slept in his lap. Not napped...slept. Dead to the world. The guy could pick the cars head up and drop it...nothing. I asked about it, and he said he used to have a roommate with a large constrictor. When they went to work, the cat would sit in the center of the living room, with its head on a swivel. It was exhausted when they got home.
Pretty. I knew a guy with several large constrictors. He ended up with some mean ones that people gave away. We walked into his house once and he said “Dammit.” I asked what was wrong. Eleven foot albino wasn’t in its cage. I guess it had a habit of ambusheing him if he wasn’t careful. Had to flip a couple of pieces of furniture to find it. He had a long-haired dachshund that he locked in the bathroom when he went to work. One of the snakes got loose and got under the door and ate it.
Coop has a late night radio show called nights with Alice Cooper. He plays classic rock, newer rock and long lost cuts from the vault, like Robin Trower too rolling stoned. He intersperses this with various anecdotes from his years of touring. He always has kind words for all his former and present bandmates, as well as everyone he has met on the road. Very gracious fellow.
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