VANITY FAIR – Bob Dylan & Gene Simmons

Martin Scorsese’s Bob Dylan “Doc”: What’s True, and What’s Fiction?

Gene Simmons: PROBABLY TRUE

A lot of misdirection emerges organically from the Rolling Thunder tour, because Dylan and company can be seen onstage wearing masks and face paint. Scorsese says that these disguises were influenced by high art, like Marcel Carné’s 1945 film, Children of Paradise. It is also stated though that Dylan’s Druid-like violinist, Scarlet Rivera—née Donna Shea—took Dylan to see Kiss, which is where he got the idea for this show’s Kabuki-style look.

There’s no way that happened, right? Well it’s not like I have their ticket stubs or anything—but Rivera and Gene Simmons did, in fact, used to date. The Demon formerly known as Chaim Witz acknowledged the connection between Kiss’s stage persona and the 1975 tour about a year ago.