(1949-)

Who Is Gene Simmons?

Musician Gene Simmons first decided he wanted to be in a band while in middle school, after watching girls scream at The Beatles on television. He was in several bands before co-founding KISS with Paul Stanley in the 1970s. Simmons later pursued interests in fashion, publishing and acting, and starred in the A&E reality TV show Gene Simmons Family Jewels.

Early Life

Simmons was born Chaim Witz on August 25, 1949, in Haifa, Israel. His mother, Flora, was a Hungarian Holocaust survivor, who watched her family die in the concentration camps when she was only 14 years old. After the end of World War II, Flora headed to Israel. It was there that she met carpenter Yeichel Witz, the man who would eventually become Simmons' father.

Yeichel and Flora's marriage began to dissolve shortly after Simmons' birth, mainly over arguments about money. Eventually, Simmons' parents agreed to separate, with Yeichel leaving for Tel Aviv to look for work. The family would never reunite, and Simmons would not see his father again.

Simmons' mother began raising him alone, and the family continued struggling in poverty. Flora found work in a coffee shop and often left Simmons in the care of babysitters. As a result, he quickly became fluent in Turkish, Hungarian, Hebrew and Spanish, in order to communicate with caregivers.

In 1958, when Simmons was 8 years old, he and his mother immigrated to New York to live with relatives in Flushing, Queens. After entering the country, Simmons changed his name to Gene because it was easier to pronounce, and took his mother's surname of Klein. He quickly learned English through comic books and television and entered the Hasidic theological seminary, called yeshiva, at the age of nine. He studied rigorously while his mother worked at a button factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.