Paul Stanley

Paul Stanley (born Stanley Bert Eisen; January 20, 1952) is an American musician and songwriter. He was the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and a founding member of the hard rock band Kiss, which was active from 1973 to 2023. He was the writer or co-writer of many of the band's most popular songs. Stanley established the Starchild character as his Kiss persona.

In 2006, Hit Parader ranked Stanley 18th on their list of the Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time. A Gibson.com readers' poll in 2010 named him 13th on a list of Top 25 Frontmen. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 as a member of Kiss.

Stanley Bert Eisen was raised in Upper Manhattan, New York City, 211th Street and Broadway. Both his parents were Jewish. He was the younger of two children; his sister Julia is two years older. Stanley's mother, Eva Jontof-Hutter, was born in Berlin, Germany to German-Jewish parents, their family fled from Nazi Germany to Amsterdam in the Netherlands before heading to New York City. His father William Eisen's parents Rebecca and Harry Eisenhandler were both of Polish-Jewish origins. Stanley was raised Jewish, although he did not consider his family very observant and did not celebrate his bar mitzvah; he continued to consider himself Jewish in adulthood.

Since Stanley's right ear was misshapen from a birth defect called microtia and he was unable to hear on that side, he found it difficult to determine the direction of a sound, and was unable to 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.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.