He’s Made Up to Produce

From some of the stories you hear, you’d think movie producers breathe fire and spit blood to get their films made.

Gene Simmons figures he can do that--as leader of the extravagant rock band KISS, he’s been doing exactly that as part of his stage act for nearly 30 years. And now he’s taken the approach to Hollywood with a vengeance, with his first credit as a movie producer coming on “Detroit Rock City,” opening Friday, a frisky tale of four boys in Cleveland in 1978 on a quest to make it to--you guessed it--a KISS concert in Detroit.

“The original producers, the first generation, were showmen,” Simmons says, leaning back in a chair with his leg up on a table in a room at the Four Seasons hotel. “It was closer to Barnum & Bailey--’Ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages, welcome to the greatest show on Earth.’

“Along the way it seems that movie producers in general got more conservative because they apparently had to go court Wall Street and financiers and so on,” he opines. “Where the role of the producer, as far as I’m concerned, is first and foremost a showman. You have to sell ice cubes to Eskimos.”

The point is underscored by the fact that the leg Simmons has over the table is covered with gnarly gray armor, as is the rest of his 6-foot-2 frame (augmented another 8 or so inches by imposing monster boots), while his face is painted in the Kabuki nightmare style of his trademark KISS persona, the Demon. If that’s not enough, he’ll happily, at the slightest provocation, put his legendarily long, pointed tongue (reddened for effect by a steady supply of cherry Lifesavers) into waggling action.

Not that Simmons wears these clothes to work in the movie world--as much as we might like to picture him this way in story meetings and financing sessions. This day he’s done up to do some on-camera bits for an MTV special on “Detroit Rock City,” in which Simmons and his three bandmates perform in the inevitable conclusion. Also on hand at the hotel are Edward Furlong, one of the movie’s stars, and Marilyn Manson, who recorded a version of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” for the soundtrack album.

And he wants there to be no mistake about his role as producer. It is no mere dilettante exercise nor a title he got simply because it involves his band. He was a fully active member of the production team--and the effort is the boot in the door of what is quickly blossoming into a legitimate movie production career. Simmons already has two other films in development at New Line, which also made “Detroit Rock City,” and nine other feature projects placed at various studios around Hollywood. And he’s also in the process of setting up his own movie production company, with, he says, $100 million in revolving bank credit to give him the power to green-light projects on his own.

He reels off the names of projects and high-power collaborators as if he had a day planner implanted in his head--not just movies, but also TV projects (a KISS-based cartoon series for Fox Kids; a rock ‘n’ roll romance CBS-TV movie set at KISS’ final concert being scripted by “Sleepless in Seattle” writer Jeff Archer), comic books, even wrestling (a Simmons-derived character is soon to be introduced on World Championship Wrestling, with story lines and spinoffs mapped out). He counts 48 ventures in the hopper, all told.

Among the coming feature attractions:

* “Real Monsters,” a horror-comedy in the tradition of “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” being written and to be directed for New Line by Adam Rifkin, who directed “Detroit Rock City.”

* “Groupies,” a coming-of-age story involving two small-town girls and a fictional famous rock band, being written from an idea of Simmons by Alison Anders (“Grace of My Heart,” “Sugartown,” “Mi Vida Loca”), also for New Line.

* A bio-pic being developed at Paramount about the life of Neil Bogart, the colorful music executive (he ran Casablanca Records and signed KISS to its first record deal) who died of cancer in the early 1980s.

All the feature film action has happened in less than a year.

“In the year that we’ve been working on this film, the time period in which he’s been in earnest a movie producer, he’s gotten more films set up than many people I know who have been actively producing for a decade,” Rifkin says. “He’s such a smart businessman, suave, shrewd and very funny, who also dresses up like a demon and spits blood.”

*

Gene Simmons is a man of broad tastes. He distrusts people who call their work “art”--”that’s a word that should be limited to use as a man’s name,” he says. And, born in Israel (to parents who had moved from Hungary) and raised in New York, the onetime schoolteacher loves American culture--especially of the comic book and cheeseburger variety, including films like “Armageddon.” But he enjoyed “Shakespeare in Love” just as much.

He’s settled into a comfortable family life in Beverly Hills with actress Shannon Tweed, his companion of 15 years, who has a small part in “Detroit Rock City,” and their son and daughter.

So with his 50th birthday approaching on Aug. 25 and KISS set to embark on its “farewell” tour toward the end of the year, the timing is perfect for him to segue into full-time film pursuits.

“There’s nothing as creative anywhere as film,” declares Simmons, a knowledgeable, passionate film buff who tried his hand at acting in the mid-’80s with prominent roles in “Runaway” and “Wanted Dead or Alive.”

Rather quaintly, he often refers to films as “motion pictures.” “The idea that you can literally create your own world, you can be God--very few things are like that in life.”

And why should Simmons get to be part of that?

Because he can. He’s Gene Simmons. People will take his calls. Brian Witten, senior vice president of production at New Line, has been a huge KISS fan since he was 10 and proudly gave a picture to Simmons of himself at 13 wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the cover art of the band’s 1977 album, “Love Gun.”

And for many, there’s no denying the appeal of simply being in business with Simmons.

“Being able to tell Gene, ‘Spit your fire at more of an angle for the camera,’ was incredible,” says Rifkin of directing the climactic concert scene. “I grew up in Chicago listening to KISS and wishing I could meet them.”

Kathleen Haase, who co-produced the movie with the rocker and Barry Levine, saw early on how Simmons has turned that fan devotion into a business empire. “He has very specific ideas about how to promote . . . KISS . . . in any business venture he chooses to participate in,” she says. “That’s what has created such a high profile for this movie, and that’s what we knew we had when we pitched it and sold to New Line.”

*

Simmons is happy to use that attraction. But he knows he always has more to prove in this business.

“I’m clearly aware that celebrity will get you through the doors,” Simmons says. “But once you’re sitting there in front of somebody and they get your autograph, you know, you’ve got to tap the dance or you’re out of there.”

Witten says Simmons has already proved himself in this world.

“He gets things done,” Witten says. “He doesn’t use agents or lawyers. He picks up the phone himself. And he wasn’t just involved with this because of the KISS trademark. He was there during casting, calling whoever he thought he could convince. At his birthday party last year he brought in Eddie [Furlong] and Natasha [Lyonne, who is also in the film] and went down on his knees to beg them to be in the movie.”

Anders, in London working on the “Groupies” script, says this is just the beginning. “Gene will be an incredible force to reckon with in the movie business because the man possesses no self-doubt,” she says. “And he’s so persuasive--I’ve never met anyone like it.”

Simmons’ eyes, surrounded by his black-and-white face paint, twinkle as he takes a cell phone call from Rifkin.

“You’re a powerful and attractive man,” he says to the director, winking to his associates sitting with him before the MTV taping.

It’s a phrase he uses a lot, along with his familiar attributes.

“Once I got mad at him for his less-than-tender approach at giving me notes on the script and reminded him that he might be Gene Simmons, but I’m Alison Anders, and he definitely made it up to me,” Anders says. “He said I was a powerful and attractive woman, and I said I wanted flowers, and he offered me full tongue action! I declined the famous tongue and just asked for gifts.”

But Simmons’ track record makes it hard to dispute much that rolls off that tongue. Smooth-talker though he can be, Simmons long ago in the rock ‘n’ roll world earned a reputation as a straight-shooter who speaks his mind and gets to the point. He may strike some as arrogant, but never as duplicitous. And the people who have been working with him praise him highly for sticking by them whenever push came to shove.

Simmons displayed these qualities throughout the dealings for “Detroit Rock City.” The project came to him about a year ago, when he was already well into developing another, higher-budget KISS-related movie with writer Floyd Mutrux, a project that would have probably taken as long as two years to make. Simmons, trying to coordinate the various strands of his life, was hoping to have a movie ready for release between KISS tours in mid-’99.

*

At that point, Levine, a former rock photographer who had worked with KISS among many others, and Haase, a young producer looking for a project to launch her career, brought Simmons the script revolving around the KISS mythos, written by first-timer Carl DuPre.

“It was an interesting, fan-based story,” Simmons says. “More along the lines of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ in the sense that it has less to do with the Wizard and more to do with the four characters on the Yellow Brick Road. That’s what ‘Detroit Rock City’ is, four KISS fans on their Yellow Brick Road to see KISS.”

Levine and Haase just wanted to get permission to make the movie.

“I said, ‘You can’t,’ ” Simmons says. “ ‘We, KISS, own the underlying rights [to the name and image]. So we can’t do this, because I can’t compete with the motion picture I’m developing.’ ”

Soon, though, Simmons realized that “Detroit” was the perfect fit. He called Mutrux and told him he had to suspend the bigger project, then struck a deal with Levine and Haase. The three took the script to New Line, where Witten and president of production Michael DeLuca gave it thumbs up.

Simmons then demonstrated his strengths and determination as a producer in helping facilitate the deal for Rifkin, his favored candidate to direct. Feeling stymied at a meeting with Rifkin and his agent over the issue of money, Simmons took his own form of direct action.

“I took Adam outside and said, ‘Let me draw a line in the sand,’ ” he says. “ ‘It’s not my money or yours. It’s New Line’s, and there’s a certain amount of money beyond which the rubber band will not stretch. It will snap. I know your agent means well, but if he’s going to go where he seems to be going with the numbers, you’re not going to do the movie. The movie’s going to be made, but not with you. I want you to make the movie, so here’s how you can. We’ll make a deal. I’ll promise that once you’re on the set, I will go and fight anybody and tell them to [expletive] off, and I mean that in the nicest way. I’ll support you as the filmmaker, if you’ll do it for the price.”

Rifkin agreed and soon found that Simmons kept his word.

“Gene was the 800-pound gorilla,” Rifkin says of the rocker’s day-to-day role as a producer. “He was on tour with KISS while we were actually shooting, but he’s a workaholic and only a cell phone away when the big-guy phone call needed to be made to get something done.

“But more importantly, since he’s a creative person as well as a great businessman, he trusts other creative people. He put his arm around me and said, ‘My philosophy of movie-making is you hire a director because you believe he can do the job, and you let him do the job . . . and if people try to force their views on you, I’ll step in.’

“Gene Simmons, when he walks into a room, everyone is looking at him. But there were three producers on this, though he’s the one who’s famous and a foot taller than the others. But he was always happily deferring to Kathleen’s expertise or Barry’s, and as a team the three of them were great collaborators, and you can imagine how some people who are really famous, their ego makes them need to take over the show.”

How far does Simmons want to go? As far as it takes.

“Do I want to run a studio?,” Simmons says. “I would. As soon as somebody offers--though I wouldn’t want to be stuck in board meetings all day long. Is it biting off more than I can chew? You bet! But you rise to the challenge. Otherwise you’re going to be a rat going through the maze.”