They call him Dr. Love and the God of Thunder, but once upon a time, Gene Simmons was Chaim Witz—born in 1949 in Haifa, Israeli, and raised in New York by his Holocaust-survivor mother. Like the creators of the superhero comic books he devoured as a kid, Simmons channeled his outsider experience into becoming the demonic, Kabuki-inspired overlord of America’s most outrageous rock band. Forming Kiss in 1973 with singer/guitarist Paul Stanley, drummer Peter Criss, and guitarist Ace Frehley, Simmons reimagined The Beatles as a sci-fi horror freak show for the glam-rock age. He set new standards for stage theatrics with his blood-spewing, fire-breathing antics—and has inspired every death-metal band that’s ever slathered itself in corpse paint. But behind the spectacle, Kiss have real musical chops: A linchpin that connected Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust with ’80s metal and arena rock, they showed future hard rockers how to hitch shout-along hooks to fired-up riffs on “Rock and Roll All Nite” and "Christine Sixteen.” And Simmons' authoritative bass-playing can power both heavy-duty stompers (“Deuce,” on which his vocals open the classic 1975 concert showcase u003ciu003eAlive!u003c/iu003e) and disco crossovers (“I Was Made for Lovin’ You”). But just as important as the music is the business: Since day one, Simmons has calculatedly put his band’s brand on everything from lunchboxes to caskets. "More is the reason for life,” he said of his entrepreneurial spirit to u003ciu003eForbesu003c/iu003e in 2012. "If you’re a mountain climber and you climb a mountain, what do you do? Stop and wait to die? No, you go and climb another mountain.”