Kiss was formed by Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss in New York City back in 1973 and each member created their own character, which were: the demon, the catman, the spaceman and starchild. Although each one of them say they created their own makeup, the guitarist Ace Frehley said in an interview with Guitar Tales Podcast (Transcribed by Ultimate Guitar), that he actually gave Stanley the idea to use a star, instead of a circle in his eye.
Ace Frehley says he helped Paul Stanley to create his make-up
“Very few people know this, and he’ll probably deny it. But when we were playing the Daisy in Long Island, it was a club where we developed our makeup, he was he had white face on with the red lipstick. He used to have a circle around his eye like the dog from ‘The Little Rascals'”.
“And I had developed the silver stars, which I was really happy with. And Gene’s makeup was coming along great. Peter needed a little help. But I said to Paul one night, ‘Instead of the circle, why don’t you put a star?’ He tried it out. He liked it, but he never gave me credit. I’ve never heard him mention that story in an interview. He’d probably deny it if somebody brought it up to him today. He has an ego the size of (Manhattan).”
He continued:
“Those guys don’t seem really happy to me. Go on the internet and see how many pictures you can find or videos of Paul Stanley cracking up. There isn’t a lot, but there’s dozens of me. I try to hang out and do the things that make me happy. My father always said to me, ‘Look, if you don’t have something good to say about somebody, don’t say anything.’ Whereas Paul and Gene are constantly… not only hitting on me and Peter. But even other guys in other bands. And it’s unnecessary,” Ace Frehley said.
Ace Frehley was part of Kiss from 1973 to 1982 and from 1996 to 2002. In the late 80s he released two studio albums with his band Frehley’s Comet and as a solo act he already released 8 studio albums, the most recent one being “10,000 volts” (2024).