Premiering May 20 on HBO Max, the trailer for the Donna Summer: Love to Love You documentary about the late disco legend, focuses on the identity crisis the singer felt, juggling stardom and motherhood,.
In an archival interview, the 1970s pop star (born LaDonna Adrian Gaines) says “My approach to singing, I approach it as an actress.” “I don’t approach it as a singer. … I’m not trying to be me.”
Included in the film are home videos of Summer with her children, one of whom says that she would learn about her mother’s life through newspaper clippings hidden around the house.
Co-direced by Summer’s daughter Brooklyn Sudano and Oscar winner, Roger Ross Williams, key participants in the documentary include Donna’s three daughters Sudano, Mimi Dohler, and Amanda Sudano Ramirez, her husband, Bruce Sudano, and her siblings, Dara Bernard, Mary Ellen Bernard, and Ric Gaines, her first husband, Helmuth Sommer, manager, Susan Munao, band member, Bob Conti, and producer Giorgio Moroder also spoke to the filmmakers.
Donna’s worldwide fame came by way of a string of massive dance/pop singles, “Love to Love You,” “I Feel Love,” “MacArthur Park,” “Hot Stuff,” “Bad Girls,” and “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough) with Barbra Streisand”
Throughout her career, the Boston-born songstress struggled with her public image. “There were times when I hated the … sex-goddess image,” she once said, admitting to a dependency on pills, attempting suicide, and becoming a born-again Christian. Toward the latter part of her career, Summer disliked being called a “disco singer.” Her hope, Rolling Stone reported after her death due to lung cancer in 2012, was that people would see all the facets of her talent.
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Author: Al Denté