Donna Summer
 Donna Summer was born LaDonna Adrian Gaines on 31 December
1948 in the Dorchester community of Boston.
One of seven
children raised by devout Christian parents, Donna sang in church
and, as a teenager, joined a rock group called The Crow.
At 18,
she left home and school to take up a supporting role in the
Broadway musical Hair.
The show moved to Germany shortly
afterwards and she eventually became a German resident.
She settled in Munich, performed in German versions of several
musicals, including Godspell and Show Boat and
also performed with the Viennese Folk Opera.
In 1971 she released
her first solo recording in Europe, entitled Sally Go 'Round
The Roses.
She married Austrian actor Helmuth Sommer in 1972 ("Summer" is an Anglicised version of his surname) and
gave birth to daughter Mimi the following year. The couple
divorced in 1976 and Summer married Bruce Sudano in 1980.
She performed with the pop group Family Tree in 1974 and 1975,
but it was while singing back-up for Three Dog Night that she
met producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, signed a contract
and issued her first album, Lady of the Night, which
included the European hit, The Hostage.
Summer has courted controversy both professionally and
personally in her career. In the early 1980s she reportedly
suggested that AIDS was a divine punishment from God, resulting in
her songs being banned for a number of years in some gay
establishments.
Summer has long denied such allegations, and
finally took legal action against a newspaper which printed the
rumours during a review of a concert.
In 1991, during the height of the Gulf War, Summer's song State
Of Independence was banned from US radio play.
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