Donna Summer’s private hell: ‘My life had no meaning’

[samhexum]

When Donna Summer was feeling all the love from the world as the Queen of Disco in the ’70s, the suicidal singer hit rock bottom.

“The most dismal days of my existence were at the height of my career,” says the late legend in the new documentary “Love To Love You, Donna Summer,” which premieres on HBO and HBO Max May 20. 

In fact, while Summer was riding high from the success of her breakout hit, the orgasmic classic “Love To Love You Baby,” she was enduring an abusive relationship with artist Peter Mühldorfer. One severe beating even left her unconscious, with a black eye and broken ribs.

“I hit her, and I never could forgive myself,” says Mühldorfer in the doc.

And having grown up in a deeply religious household — her father smacked her for wearing red nail polish because “that’s what whores wore” — Summer was highly conflicted about her image as a sex goddess from hits such as “Love To Love You Baby,” “I Feel Love” and later “Hot Stuff.” In reality, she was more church girl than “Bad Girl.”

“You’re looking at me, but what you see is not what I am,” she says in the film, which is co-directed by her daughter Brooklyn Sudano and Oscar winner Roger Ross Williams. “How many roles do I have to play in my own life?”

Summer was also carrying around the pain and trauma of having been sexually abused by her pastor as a child.

“He did the devil’s work better than most,” says her brother Ricky Gaines in the doc. “It became a defining moment in her life.”

All of her mental struggles led to Summer almost jumping out of a window in her New York hotel room in 1976. But her foot became entangled in a window curtain as she approached the ledge, and at that moment a maid entered.

 

“Another 10 seconds, and I would have been gone,” Summer — who died at 63 from lung cancer in 2012 — later said.

“I felt God could never forgive me because I had failed him. I was decadent, I was stupid, I was a fool. I just decided that my life had no meaning.”

https://nypost.com/2023/04/28/new-doc-reveals-donna-summers-private-hell-at-height-of-her-fame/

Sad to read this about a woman who brought so much joy to so many people.

 

 

 

[samhexum]

 

[Ali Gator]

As a huge Summer fan since the 70s, I was disappointed with this documentary. I was waiting for 'the good part' which never came. They focused on the 70s, and kind of swept through the 80s. I wanted to hear more about her relationship with Geffen Records, more about her visions compared to David Geffen's, more from whom she worked with (producers, writers, etc.) when her success went astray.  I wanted to know more about her lung cancer diagnosis and her final months of life - whch has been kept so quiet over the past 11 years. 

 

I felt I could learn more through her wiki page. 

[Guest]

Many of our younger members might not remember when her name became dirt to the gay community in the mid 80s. A "born-again" Christian, she supposedly made some hateful comments:

Letter Shows Donna Summer Defending Herself Against Alleged Anti-Gay Comments - ABC News

ABCNEWS.GO.COM

 

"During the height of her fame in disco's 1970s heyday, Donna Summer, who died of lung cancer May 17, was an icon in the gay community. That changed in 1983, when the "Queen of Disco" allegedly made several derogatory remarks about the gay community and HIV/AIDS during a performance. The comments sparked immediate backlash from both gay and straight fans.

"It was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve," Summer allegedly said during the Atlantic City performance. Summer had recently announced she was a born-again Christian, and her alleged comments were based in her new religion. "I have seen the evils of homosexuality," The Advocate reports she said. "AIDS is the result of your sins." She later denied ever making the comments, and in a just-released letter from 1989, Summer calls the accusations "unjust and unfair."..."

[maninsoma]

I watched this documentary a week ago.  Like the stage show about her, this documentary portrays Donna as an unhappy victim whose only joy in life came after she became a born again Christian.  I still like a lot of the music, particularly the stuff she did in the 1970s with Giorgio Moroder, but feel even more ambivalence towards her after watching these shows.  The take away I got was that she was raised in a very religiously rigid family and never was able to reconcile those views with the music she made that was overtly sexual.

[Ali Gator]

On 7/21/2023 at 7:43 PM, maninsoma said:

I watched this documentary a week ago.  Like the stage show about her, this documentary portrays Donna as an unhappy victim whose only joy in life came after she became a born again Christian.  I still like a lot of the music, particularly the stuff she did in the 1970s with Giorgio Moroder, but feel even more ambivalence towards her after watching these shows.  The take away I got was that she was raised in a very religiously rigid family and never was able to reconcile those views with the music she made that was overtly sexual.

I gathered there were two people in her immediate world:  Donna Summer, the performer who will forever be remembered as the artist with the string of hits such as "Love to Love You", "I Feel Love", "Hot Stuff", "Bad Girls", etc.

And then there's LaDonna Gaines Sommer Sudano, daughter, wife, mother of three and grandmother of 2 (at the time), who enjoyed her Christian life, personal time and family more than her music career and 'celebrity'. She expressed herself through painting, and kept her private life very private. She had said in interviews (and in her memoir) she moved to Nashville from LA, because she never felt at home in LA, but could hide outside of Nashville. She never seeked attention, and never felt comfortable with it - but it came with the territory. 

 

She had very few 'celebrity friends', but those she was 'friends' with, she had forever since the 70s - including David Foster, Bruce Springsteen, Sylvester Stallone, Sophia Loren, and Barbra Streisand. She had mentioned whenever she was in LA for business, she would get together for Italian cooking at Sophia Loren's home, where Stallone would join them and the three of them would have 'too much fun'. Then they'd invite their spouses to the dining room, where they would be fed a feast. And still, with this small circle of friends she knew she could share with and trust, she told no one of her cancer diagnosis or how ill she was at the end.  Streisand, Springsteen, Foster - they all expressed their shock over her passing, as they had all been in her company months before her passing and she never mentioned how sick she was, never wanting the attention on her.  She was a class act.  

 

(She explained in her memoir that she met Loren when she lived in Beverly Hills in the 70s / 80s - Loren was her neighbor. When her Italian in-laws would visit, Loren would host an Italian feast at her house, inviting Summer and the Sudanos. Stallone lived down the street from Summer and Loren, and was firendly with Loren - so she used to invite him from time to time, as well (and his mother and brothers if they were visiting).  That's how she became friends with Stallone. From time to time, she would just invite Donna and Stallone to her kitchen to give them 'cooking lessons' which they enjoyed).

Edited July 23, 2023 by Ali Gator