Gene Simmons Watched Looney Tunes With Superman Star Christopher Reeve and Director Richard Donner (Exclusive)

Gene Simmons has been around the entertainment industry for decades, and it’s hard to overstate the impact he has made with KISS, or the friends he has made along the way. Famously a contemporary of Marvel’s Stan Lee, Simmons recently shared an anecdote about his friendship with the late filmmaker Richard Donner, and about how Simmons was one of Donner’s first calls when he cast Christopher Reeve as Superman. Apparently, the trio hung out for a while and watched Looney Tunes, presumably with no knowledge that one day the Man of Steel himself would officially team up with those toons. (KISS didn’t, but they’ve teamed up with Scooby-Doo, so again, basically one degree of separation between all parties.)

Speaking with ComicBook.com about his new comic book Dominatrix, Simmons broke down the encounter with Reeve and Donner, and admitted that he had the same first question about Reeve that many have had before and since: he wondered about a potential relationship between Reeve and The Adventures of Superman star George Reeves (the two aren’t related).

“When Dick Donner, who was a friend, who directed the early [Superman] movies, when he cast Christopher Reeve in it, he called me up and said, ‘Hey, I’ve got the Superman, can we come over to the house?’ So we hung out — we watched Looney Tunes cartoons,” Simmons told ComicBook.com’s Chris Killian. “The thing I kept thinking throughout the whole thing was, ‘Are you related to George Reeves?…But Donner and I became friends, I don’t know why. He used to take me to all these events. There was a guy named Alan Ladd, Jr., whose father was a legend in movies and he was the head of a studio at that time, and they’d run films at his house, and I’d sit there with…name the Hollywood stars, they’d all be there.”

Alan Ladd was an actor and producer best known for Paramount’s This Gun For Hire. He also appeared opposite Veronica Lake in a few noir films, including a 1942 adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s story, The Glass Key. His son, Alan Jr., was an agent and film executive who was ultimately the CEO of 20th Century Fox in the late 1970s. During that time, it was Alan Ladd, Jr. who first brought Star Wars to the studio, and it was Ladd and Fox President Gordon Stulberg who stood by it when the movie went over budget and the studio wanted to just cancel the whole thing. He would later go on to found The Ladd Company, run MGM/United Artists for a while, and win a Best Picture Oscar for Braveheart.

Simmons is bringing a new comic book, Dominatrix, to market with Opus Comics, a reimagining of a 2000 title that Simmons published. The new series is written by Holly Interlandi (Cradle of Filth) – and based on a story by creator Gene Simmons – with art by S L Gallant and Maria Keane (fresh off their run on G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero). Issue #1 features a gorgeous cover by Jim Balent (Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose) plus retailer incentive variants by Emilio Laiso and Joseph Michael Linsner.

“It’s a huge thrill to reintroduce fans to Dominatrix with this fresh new take,” series writer Holly Interlandi said in a statement. “Gene has been so open to working with us and taking his characters and story in a new, yet somewhat familiar, direction. I’m looking forward to seeing what fans make of it all.”