|
Gene Simmons
| Biography |
The Demon. Even before KISS was the slightest of ideas in the minds of Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, the character which was to become "The Demon" was taking shape in the mind of a young immigrant. Gene's background is probably the most interesting of all of the members of KISS, and embodies the sense of the "American dream". Yet, there is a certain amount of indecision which the youngman went through before finally finding his meaning, something which has seldom affected the man since...
Chaim Witz was born in Haifa, Israel, on August 25, 1949. The son of Florence and Feri Witz, Gene entered a newly independent Israel, a tough small country surrounded by enemies. From the end of the Second World War, Israel became the destination for many of the few remaing Jews, those who had survived the Holocaust in Europe, and those who wanted to escape the entrenchment of the Soviet sphere of influence and control in the East. It was from here that Florence, a Hungarian survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, emigrated, though whether she had married Gene's father by that time is unclear. Of Gene's father little is known, apart from his occupation as a carpenter. Gene's parents divorced in 1954 and in 1958 Gene and his mother emigrated to America, landing at LaGuardia Airport after surviving the trauma of a one-stop flight on which Gene threw up twice, where she found work at a dress making factory. Living in Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, NY, Gene started to learn English. While years later, in 1978, Gene would record "When You Wish Upon A Star", as a tip-of-the-hat to Disney, an early aid for his learning the language of his adopted country, Gene also used commercials and televison as learning aids though it is not suprising that this sort of media caught the attention of young Gene who at that point only spoke Hebrew, Spanish, Turkish and Hungarian! But Disney would have a more profound effect on the young man. "I was starting to learn English by watching TV", recounts Gene in a Goldmine interview with Ken Sharp, "but certainly when I saw Pinocchio I thought the little cricket was talking to me. 'You, Gene, I'm talking to you. When you wish upon a star your dreams come true'". Another tool which Gene used, not only to learn English, but because "the colors and pictures were interesting", were comics, which were to play an important part in his life. A further connection to comics, Gene soon became a fan of horror movies and thrillers, after seeing a documentary on the great Lon Chaney. Called "Man Of A Thousand Faces", Gene would provide another tip-of-the-hat to this man by writing a song (which would appear on his 1978 solo album) and naming his production company the same in the 1970's. |
|
|
|
|
