The film opens with an extreme close-up of her doe-eyed, singing orgasm to her career-defining song, “Love To Love You Baby,” but that’s only one version of Donna Summer it is known to the public. “I have a secret life,” she admits in a voiceover, “How many roles do I play in my own life?”
This fundamental question is answered in a new documentary, I love to love you, Donna Summerwhich premieres May 20 on HBO Max.
Directed by Summer’s daughter Brooklyn Sudano along with Oscar and Emmy-winning documentarian Roger Ross Williams, I love to love you, Donna Summer hardly the hedonistic story of Queen of the discobut instead an intimate and tender portrait of an extraordinary artist, pioneering performer and mother.
Apart from a short story by Elton Johnthe film does not rely on famous talking heads, but instead uses personal interviews with her family and friends to tell Summer’s story before her tragic death in 2012. Along with some incredible archival performances, the documentary allows Summer to tell her own story, with plenty of personal home movies, behind-the-scenes tour footage and voice-overs to showcase Summer’s formidable abilities as a singer, performer and songwriter.
Here are 10 takeaways from this very generous and compelling portrayal of one of the most influential black women in music.
“Love To Love You Baby” didn’t start out as a song
As with most enduring songs in music history, Summer’s biggest hit, “Love To Love You Baby”, happened by accident. “I wrote it as a concept, not as a song for someone else to write lyrics,” Summers reveals. She invented a voice, a sexy persona, to create a mood, and that mood would change her life. “It wasn’t me,” she adds, “it was a role.”
Summer wrote the song with the help of legendary European producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellot. The two were looking for an English speaker for a demo and met Summer, who was also a session singer at the time. This would become the most fruitful relationship of her career. The original version was only a minute long, then it was extended to three. After Casablanca Records boss Neil Bogart played it at a party and guests asked to hear it repeatedly, the song was stretched to its final 16 minutes and 48 seconds.
It became a song of revolution and a gay anthem and inspired a new industry phrase, “sex rock,” as audiences ripped their clothes off when they heard it. “Love to Love Your Baby” was banned by the BBC for being too explicit and sold one million copies. As Summer’s grandmother reacts, “I’ll never be able to go to church again.”
“I Feel Love” was the first electronic disco song
If “Love To Love You Baby” seduced the squirming masses on the dance floor, the next Summer/Moroder/Bellotte collaboration was headed for the skies. As someone who honed her voice singing gospel and Broadway,” Summer’s supple vocals were a perfect fit for the ethereal sound of “I Feel Love.”
“I felt like I was floating, the elation you get when you’re in love,” says Summer. “We were moving forward; everyone else followed.” It was not only the first electronic disco song, but also the first use of a drum machine track in music. “I remember when ‘I Feel Love’ came on at Studio 54, you just stopped, you thought, what is that?” Elton John recounts.
Summer’s relationship with Morodor was more than creative. As a survivor of male abuse, Summer trusted him more than most. “He took me under his wing and was a redemptive figure for the men in my life,” Summer shared.
She started in a rock band
Long before she became the queen of disco, young LaDonna Gaines (as she was then known) became captivated by Janis Joplin and rock music, fronting the Boston psychedelic rock band Crow. In high school, she snuck out and played clubs in Boston before heading to New York and living above the famed Wha Cafe in the summer of 1968. Summer engulfed the booming hippie scene (“Music poured out of every door”), but as fate would have it, she met the director of the hit musical HAIR through a friend and left to participate in the German production at 19.
She first became known in Germany
As a star in HAIR, Summer not only plays in German, but also speaks the language. Like many black American artists Nina Simone and Josephine Baker before her, Summer experienced a new freedom in Europe. “Being in Germany gave me the right to be myself,” she admits. She was a star in Europe as a model and singer and eventually met her first husband, Austrian actor Helmut Sommer, while living there. Donna took his last name and Americanized it and gave birth to her eldest daughter, Mimi, who also appears frequently in the film.
Casablanca Records was her whole world
After moving from Munich back to New York, Casablanca Records founder Neil Bogart personally took charge of her career. Everything from her outfit with fur coats (“You’ll look like you’re already rich”) to painting her toenails while getting ready. As Summer reflects in her voiceover, Bogart “taught her how to dream.” Donna would later fall out with the label, but it was Bogart who gave her a sexy persona and “took me where I needed to go.”
She struggled with her fame and image
One of the recurring themes in the film is that Summer juxtaposes her stage persona with her home self. She always tried to become the person she was on stage. “I approach it like an actress,” she explains. “I’m not trying to be myself.” Her stage performances were also very theatrical and she always played a part. “I have not dreamed of fame; I dreamed of singing. I didn’t know how to handle the attention.”
Summer’s daughters also note how private their mother was. The doors would be locked and they would learn things about her from the newspapers or the radio.
“I actually remember the first time we heard ‘Love to Love You Baby,'” shares her youngest daughter, Amanda Ramirez. “I didn’t even know it existed. Brooklyn walked into the room and said, “Do I have a song for you to hear!”
She had a complicated relationship with faith
Growing up in the church, Summers was raised gospel music. Her father played her records Mahalia Jackson and say, “Sing like this record.” She became obsessed and listened to Jackson for hours, saying, “She’s got what I want.” At the age of eight, she filled in for someone sick in the church choir and blew everyone away. Everyone was in tears, “I knew I was going to be famous,” Summer recalled. But although she grew up deeply spiritual, her faith was put to the test after she was abused by a priest when she was a teenager. It wasn’t until later in life that she returned to the church to become a born-again Christian. “When you’re successful and you’ve achieved your goals and you feel empty, what happens next,” she wonders. After suffering a mental breakdown in New York, Summer returned to her faith and found her footing again.
She was an aspiring director and a fine artist
Much of the documentary relies on home movies shot by Summer herself. She was studying to be a director and had a video studio at home. She bought a movie camera and made movies while on tour. From family parties to full-fledged short films, Summer captures her world with a sharp eye. Later in her career, she wanted to explore other creative aspects of her personality and started painting. She became an avid artist for 15 years and exhibited her work in many fine art galleries. “When I leave the stage, I don’t go home with anything. With painting, I have something tangible.”
“She Works Hard for the Money” was inspired by a bathroom attendant
Summer continued her hit streak in the 1980s with her feminist anthem “She works hard for the money,” inspired by an orderly she saw on Grammy night in 1983. While attending an after party at Chasen’s restaurant in West Hollywood, Summer saw Onetta Johnson sleeping in the ladies room and thought that this woman worked hard for the money. Summer even featured Johnson on the album cover on the back of the LP. “She Works Hard For The Money” will become the first music video by a black female artist on MTV.
She performs and tours with her family
Summer grew up in a large family as one of seven children and her family was very protective of her. She brought her three sisters, Mary Ellen, Dara and Linda, on the road with her. Initially joining to look after their sister, they eventually formed their own disco band Sunshine in 1978 and served as backing vocalists. Mary Ellen Bernard continued to perform with Summer until her sister’s death on May 17, 2012, due to pancreatic cancer.
Stream I love to love you, Donna Summer on HBO Max.