British-born choreographer, actor, producer, screenwriter and director David Winters has passed away at 80. Winters, who played A-rab in the original ‘West Side Story’ film as well as working with Elvis (on ‘Viva Las Vegas’), and The Monkees, had a long friendship with Alice and Sheryl Cooper, and directed the ‘Welcome To My Nightmare’ concert film in 1975. You can read more background about Winters here. Alice posted the following to social media earlier today:
“David Winters realized what we were trying to do in 1975 with with our rock production of “Welcome To My Nightmare.” He saw the potential of merging hard rock Alice Cooper with theater. We chose him as director/choreographer because he portrayed A-rab in the classic film “West Side Story.” That film was a huge influence on us as a band. But most of all, David selected an 18 year old ballerina out of hundreds of top notch auditioning LA dancers to dance on the ‘Welcome To My Nightmare’ concert tour. That dancer (Sheryl) and I are still happily married after 43 years. I could not have found a more kindred spirit than David.”- Alice Cooper
Ultimate Classic Rock have a new interview with Alice talking about the new Hollywood Vampires album, the next show, a new solo album and other stuff.
There’s also a new interview at AZCentral promoting this weekends Alice Cooper Golf event (which also features Neal Smith) and ‘The Rock’ teen center. It also mentions the upcoming albums.
If you are on the fence about getting tickets for any of the forthcoming US shows Live Nation have announced its fifth annual ‘National Concert Week’, set for May 1st to 7th. This offers fans the chance to purchase $20 tickets (all-in, including fees) for over 2000 different shows, and the offer apparently includes the Alice Cooper/Halestorm shows.
Fan footage of Alice’s full Q&A session from the FanX event in Salt Lake city is now up on YouTube.
The University Of Buffalo has a new interview with Shep Gordon about his career with a few interesting stories.