I was at a priesthood stake conference or fireside at a stake centre back in 1990.I heard a story announced and told then that Alice Cooper who is the famous rock star was a returned missionary or something like that.He took of his temple garments and showed them on a stage where was was performing.He was supposed to have made a pact wit the devil so he could become famous.Has anybody this story?I checked on Wikipedia and found he grew up as a Bickernite which is Mormon splinter group like the Strangites.

My wife met him once in a parking lot in Arizona. She remarked to him that he looked just like Alice Cooper and they struck up a conversation. She told him about going to his concerts back in the day. She said he was the nicest guy.

When I first started my Mormon recovery, the song “Poison” best described my relationship with the church.

I've read good things about him.

The word on the putting greens is that his dad’s middle name was Moroni, which happens to be my White man’s name, given to me in the temple lo so many, many years ago.

His grandfather was an apostle in the Bickertonite version of the the holy Roman mormon church. Alice didn’t stay active long enough to be given the priesthood.

He sat next to Mick Jagger on an airplane.

Exactly. Once born, a rumor assumes many different forms.

The story about the garments on stage is rubbish but it was told over and over again. He was never a Salt Lake/Brighamite type mormon- but his Grandfather and father I believe were Bickertonites.

Apologies, just realized you mentioned the bickers in your op.

Alice’s real name is Vince Furnier, he formed a band in the early 60’s called The Earwigs at Cortez High School in Phoenix, Az. He became close to Emmitt Smith, the Cross Country coach who was LDS. The bass player in the band, Dennis Dunaway was LDS but Vince never was.

It's common, especially in the religious context, to point out famous people who "are one of us." By identifying accomplished people as "one of us," it validates "us."

My Christian Science parents enjoyed pointing out that Ginger Rogers, Maureen Stapleton, and Doris Day were all CS. That didn't make the religion true, but it did provide a kind of social validation. Perhaps it made a prospective proselyte a little more inclined to embrace that faith.

Speaking of Doris Day, she lived to a ripe old age, but apparently drifted away in her later years. So her longevity doesn't demonstrate CS as effective, but probably her genetic good fortune. My brother attended the small CS college (Principia) with her son from her first marriage.

I read a heartbreaking book about CS. The woman who wrote it described how her mother basically wasted away at the CS “hospital/rest home” because she had advanced cancer. And they didn’t do anything but pray.

If that's Caroline Fraser's book, "God's Perfect Child," that woman's practitioner was my mother. I didn't read the book until after my mother's death.