Gene Simmons

About

Gene Simmons (born Chaim Witz; Hebrew: חיים ויץ [χaˈim ˈvits]; August 25, 1949), also known by his stage persona “the Demon”, is an Israeli and American musician and songwriter. He was the bassist and co-lead singer of the hard rock band Kiss, which he co-founded with Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss in 1973. Simmons, alongside Stanley, remained a constant member of the band until their dissolution in 2023. Simmons is also known for his long tongue and for his reality television show, Gene Simmons Family Jewels, which aired from 2006 to 2012. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 as a member of Kiss.

Simmons was born Chaim Witz on August 25, 1949, in Haifa, Israel, to Jewish refugees from Hungary. His mother, Flóra Kovács (later Florence Klein, then Florence Lubowski) (1925–2018), was born in Jánd in the Northern Great Plain region of eastern Hungary. She survived internment in Nazi concentration camps from November 1944 to her liberation from the Mauthausen camp in Austria on May 5, 1945. She and her brother, Larry Klein, were the only members of the family to survive the Holocaust. Witz’s father, Ferenc “Feri” Yehiel…