Rock Hall of Fame-bound Cooper recounts when Alice met Dalí

The honor is a reminder of how huge a star the theatrical rocker, best known for heavy metal anthems such as "School's Out," once was. Another reminder can be found in the current High Museum of Art exhibit "Dalí: The Late Work," which includes a very odd holographic portrait of Cooper by the Spanish surrealist and some entertaining recollections by Cooper himself on the exhibit's audio tour.

"I've met just about every mad genius in the world, and nobody compared to Dalí," says Cooper, who admitted the artist was his hero when he was still an art student with rock ‘n' roll dreams.

For a time, Cooper was a special guest in Dalí's social realm, attending parties thrown by the artist at the St. Regis Hotel in New York.

On the audio tour, Cooper recalls one of Dali's entrances: "He's wearing giraffe skin pants and Aladdin shoes and a pair of socks that Elvis Presley gave him … of course, total bizarreness in himself. And he sits down. ‘The Dalí is here!'"

Cooper on being a subject of a Dalí work

In 1973, Dalí created “First Cylindric Chrono-Hologram Portrait of Alice Cooper’s Brain,” capturing the singer bedecked in jewels and holding a Venus de Milo statuette as if it were a microphone. A plaster sculpture of Cooper's brain, topped by a chocolate eclair covered in ants, another Dalí creation, was placed behind the cross-legged rock star. And Dalí documented the whole strange business, using what was then cutting-edge technology.

On the "Dalí: The Late Work" audio tour, here's how Cooper recalls modeling for the mad maestro:

"The Alice Cooper show was always sort of like looking into somebody's nightmare. And  I think it really was Dalí-esque background that kind of showed up in our rock ‘n' roll.

"Salvador Dalí came to see one of the shows, and he said, ‘I want you to be the subject of this. It's a full, three-dimensional hologram.' And I said, ‘Fine. You're Salvador Dalí, just tell me what you want me to do.'

"It was a three-day shoot. I had no shirt on. And he says, ‘I want you to be sitting here with these diamonds and bringing the microphone up to your mouth like you're singing and then putting it back down.' Of course, there were also two guys on each side that you didn't see, with machine guns, because this was three or four million dollars in diamonds.

"The second day I showed up, he has his hand behind his back. He walks in, he goes, ‘This is the Alice Cooper brain!' and he pulls out this plaster cast. It's a plaster brain. It had a chocolate eclair running down the back of it, and it had little ants painted on it that spelled out ‘Alice and Dalí.'

"I said, ‘Well, can I have it?' And he goes, ‘Of course not, it's worth millions!'

"He has my brain somewhere. And I'd like it back."

Expanded hours for closing of “Dalí: The Late Work”

Expecting large crowds right up to the Jan. 9 closing of its popular exhibit focusing on Dalí’s lesser-known output starting in the 1940s, the High Museum of Art is planning to stay open 31 hours straight on its closing weekend.

Billing the marathon as “Dalí 'til Dawn,” the High will be open from 10 a.m. Jan. 8 until 5 p.m. Jan. 9.

From midnight to 9 a.m., admission will be reduced to $5, and parking will be free from midnight to 6 a.m. Free Red Bull and coffee will be available. Also, WonderRoot arts center will present an array of performance art, 6-11 p.m. Jan. 8.

Advance ticket purchase is recommended.

Regular ticket prices: $18; $15 students and seniors; $11 children 6-17; free for children 5 and younger and members. Normal museum hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays; until 8 p.m. Thursdays; noon-5 p.m. Sundays. The High is at 1280 Peachtree St. in Midtown. Information: 404-733-4444, www.high.org.