Known mostly for his shocking stage antics from his band's early days, Alice Cooper used a love of blood, gore, and rock & roll to turn himself into a rousing success. Born Vincent Furnier in Detroit, Cooper formed the Earwigs in the mid '60s. The band eventually changed its name to Alice Cooper; and when they broke up in 1974, Furnier began calling himself Alice Cooper. His brand of rock was consistently basic and easy to swallow but his live shows were steeped in theatrics — electric chairs, guillotines and live boa constrictors. Religious pundits protested his show as satanic and the controversy stoked Cooper's record sales, creating hits out of the songs "Eighteen" and "School's Out." Throughout his career, Cooper has used this odd caricature in movies and on television: He was cast as Freddy Krueger's father in 1991's Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, played an overly cerebral version of himself in 1992's Wayne's World and in 2004 appeared in a Staples commercial.

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