Donna Summer - Personal Life

Personal Life

LaDonna Gaines was one of seven children born and raised in Boston's Mission Hill neighborhood, living on the first floor of a three-decker home. Following her move to Austria in 1971, she met and fell in love with actor Helmuth Sommer while the two were acting in Godspell. In 1973, the couple married and that year Gaines gave birth to her first child, daughter Mimi Sommer. In 1975, the couple divorced. Gaines took her husband's last name (changing the second letter to a "u") as her stage name.

In 1978, while working on the hit track, "Heaven Knows" which featured Brooklyn Dreams member Joe "Bean" Esposito on vocals, Summer met fellow member Bruce Sudano. Within a few months, Summer and Sudano became a couple. They married on July 16, 1980. In 1981, Summer gave birth to another daughter (her first child with Sudano), Brooklyn Sudano, named after Sudano's group. In 1982, Summer and Sudano had their second child, Amanda Sudano. Brooklyn would grow up to star in the hit ABC production My Wife and Kids.

In 1995, Summer and her family moved from Sherman Oaks, California to Nashville, where she took time out from show business to focus on painting, a hobby she began back in the 1980s. Also during 1995, Summer's mother, Mary Gaines, died of pancreatic cancer. Her father, Andrew Gaines, died of natural causes in December 2004.