Paul Stanley

Stanley Bert Eisen was born in upper Manhattan, New York City, near 211th St. and Broadway; the Inwood neighborhood near Inwood Hill Park.

Both of his parents are Jewish.

He was the second of two children; his sister Julia is two years older.

Their mother came from a family that fled Nazi Germany for Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and then to New York City.

His father's parents were from Poland.

Stanley was raised Jewish, although he did not consider his family very observant and did not celebrate his bar mitzvah.

His parents listened to classical music and light opera; Stanley was greatly moved by Beethoven's works.

Stanley's right ear was misshapen from a birth defect called microtia; he was unable to hear on that side, he found it difficult to determine the direction of a sound, and he could not understand speech in a noisy environment.

Attending PS 98, he was taunted by other children for his deformed ear.

Despite his hearing problem, Stanley enjoyed listening to music, and he watched American Bandstand on television.

His favorite musical artists included Eddie Cochran, Dion and the Belmonts, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard.

Stanley learned to sing harmony with his family, and he was given a child's guitar at age seven.

Paul Stanley (born Stanley Bert Eisen; January 20, 1952) is an American musician who was the co-founder, frontman, rhythm guitarist and co-lead vocalist of the hard rock band Kiss from the band's inception in 1973 to their retirement in 2023.

He was the writer or co-writer of many of the band's most popular songs.

Stanley established The Starchild character for his Kiss persona.

Stanley's family relocated to the Kew Gardens neighborhood in Queens in 1960.

He listened to a lot of doo-wop music, but when the Beatles and the Rolling Stones played on U.S. television he was inspired by the performance aspect, which he thought was not out of his reach.

Stanley received his first real guitar at age 13, an acoustic one that he would have preferred to be electric.

He played tunes by Bob Dylan, the Byrds, the Lovin' Spoonful and more.

All through his childhood Stanley had been recognized for his talent in graphic arts, so he attended the High School of Music & Art in New York City, graduating in 1970.

Before Kiss, Stanley was in a local band, Rainbow and was a member of Uncle Joe and Post War Baby Boom.

Through a mutual friend of Gene Simmons, Stanley joined Simmons' band Wicked Lester in the early 1970s.

The band recorded an album in 1972, but it was never officially released.

Wicked Lester fell apart and Stanley and Simmons answered Peter Criss's advertisement in Rolling Stone.

Soon after recruiting Criss, they held auditions for a lead guitarist, with Stanley placing an ad in the Village Voice.

Ace Frehley won the group over with his playing, and was nearly a perfect fit to the group's sound.

This make-up design was used during a few 1973–74 shows and photo-shoots, some of which he was photographed with both designs in the same session.

"I even tried painting my face all red," he admitted.

"I looked like a longhaired tomato! Before settling on the star, I'd just paint a black ring around my eye… Each of us wears something that reflects who we are. I always loved stars and always identified with them – so, when it came time to put something on my face, I knew it would be a star."

Kiss released their self-titled debut album in February 1974.

At this point, Stanley had the idea of changing his name not only for marketing purposes but also the fact he had always hated his birth name.

Inspired by Paul McCartney and Paul Rodgers, he legally changed his name to Paul Stanley.

Stanley's persona in Kiss was "the Starchild" displaying one star over his right eye.

For a brief time, Stanley tried out a new character "the Bandit", with a "Lone Ranger" style mask design make-up pattern.

In his book Sex Money Kiss, Gene Simmons says Stanley was the driving force for KISS during the period in the 1980s when the band performed without makeup.

Those years, Stanley noted, "were fine for me. I found them very satisfying because I got a chance to be out there without makeup, which I craved at that point. I think it was easier for me [than Simmons] because my persona was one that wasn't really defined by the makeup… The makeup was just reinforcing what you were seeing and who I was."

In 2006, Hit Parader ranked him 18th on their list of the Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time.

In 2007, Stanley was hospitalized with tachycardia.

A Gibson.com readers' poll in 2010 named him 13th on their list of Top 25 Frontmen.

Stanley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 as a member of Kiss.