Hot Stuff singer Donna Summer
died last week aged 63 after a battle with cancer, her family has confirmed.
The Boston-born star, known as
the Queen of Disco, passed away in Florida .
The Seventies icon was battling
lung cancer, with sources saying Donna believed she contracted the illness by
inhaling toxic particles after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York .
Her family released a statement,
saying Summer died on Thursday morning and that they 'are at peace celebrating
her extraordinary life and her continued legacy'.
It went on: 'Words truly can't
express how much we appreciate your prayers and love for our family at this
sensitive time.'
She had been living in Englewood , Florida ,
with her husband Bruce Sudano.
The singer will be remembered at
a public memorial in Nashville ,
Tennessee next Wednesday.
Sources said she had attempted to
keep the extent of her illness from fans and was recently trying to finish up
her latest album.
According to sources, she was
diagnosed with cancer 10 months ago and only told her husband and three
children.
Hit maker: Summer is know for her
popular 70s tracks including Hot Stuff and Bad Girls
She will be laid to rest in Nashville on Monday
following her funeral.
Summers, real name LaDonna
Gaines, is best know for her string of 70s hits, including I Feel Love, Last
Dance and Bad Girls.
She was a five-time Grammy Award
winner and the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach
number one on the US Billboard chart.
TRIBTUES TO THE DISCO QUEEN
Dionne Warwick: 'My heart goes
out to her husband and her children. Prayers will be said to keep them strong.'
Billy Ray Cyrus: "R I P
#Donna Summer LEGEND!!! Your music will live forever.'
Gloria Estefan: 'Few singers have
impacted music & the world like Donna Summer! It's the end of an era...
Peace & prayers 2 all who loved her. I will miss her!'
La Toya Jackson: 'My condolence
to #Donna Summer's family & love ones. She will be terribly missed. She was
truly the #Disco Queen!'
Timbaland (music producer): 'This
cant be tru. i cant believe this RIP Donna Summer. at a lost 4words.'
Russell Simmons: 'RIP Donna
Summer'
Ellen DeGeneres: 'I'm so sad
about the news that Donna Summer died this morning. I was a big fan. I even
used one of her songs in my show that airs today.'
Ricky Martin: 'RIP Donna Summer
:0('
Summer came to prominence just as
disco was burgeoning, and came to define the era with a string of No. 1 hits
and her beauty queen looks.
Disco became as much defined by
her sultry, sexual vocals - her bedroom moans and sighs - as the relentless,
pulsing rhythms of the music itself.
Summers married actor Helmuth
Sommer in 1973 before giving birth to the couple's daughter Mimi later that year.
Although the marriage crumbled in
1975, she kept an altered version of her ex's surname to use as her stage name.
She married Brooklyn Dreams musician Bruce Sudano in 1980 and the couple went
on to have two daughters, Brooklyn , born in
1981 and Amanda the following year.
In 1994, the family moved from Los Angeles to Nashville
where Donna took time out from showbusiness to focus on painting but had
recently returned to the recording studio.
As well has staggering career
highs, Summer also endured personal lows.
She suffered serious depression
in the wake of September 11 terrorist attacks in New York .
'I was really freaked out by the
horrific experiences of that day,' Summer, who was at her Manhattan apartment during the 2001 attacks,
once said.
'I couldn't go out, I didn't want
to talk to anybody. I had to keep the blinds down and stay in my bedroom.'
Friends eventually intervened and
the born-again Christian also found strength in her faith.
'I went to church, and light came
back into my soul,' she said in 2008. 'That heaviness was gone.'
Love to Love You Baby, with its
erotic moans, was her first hit and one of the most scandalous songs of the
polyester-and-platform-heel era.
Unlike some other stars of disco
who faded as the music became less popular, Summer was able to grow beyond it
and later segued to a pop-rock sound.
She had one of her biggest hits
in the 1980s with She Works Hard For The Money, which became another anthem,
this time for women's rights
Dancing Queen: Shaking some moves
at the famous Studio 54 nightclub in New
York in the Seventies
Soon after, Summer became a
born-again Christian and faced controversy when she was accused of making
anti-gay comments in relation to the AIDS epidemic. Summer denied making the
comments, but was the target of a boycott.
Still, even as disco went out of
fashion she remained a fixture in dance clubs, endlessly sampled and remixed
into contemporary dance hits.
Summer, real name LaDonna Adrian
Gaines, was born in 1948 in Boston .
She was raised on gospel music and became the soloist in her church choir by
age 10.
Love to Love You Baby was her U.S. chart
debut and the first of 19 No. 1 dance hits between 1975 and 2008 - second only
to Madonna.
During the disco era she burned
up the charts: She was the only artist to have three consecutive double-LPs hit
No. 1, Live and More, `Bad Girls and On the Radio.
She was never comfortable with
the 'Disco Queen' label. Musically, she began to change in 1979 with Hot Stuff,
which had a tough, rock `n' roll beat.
Her diverse sound helped her earn
Grammy Awards in the dance, rock, R&B and inspirational categories.
Dionne Warwick said in a
statement that she was sad to lose a great performer and 'dear friend'.
'My heart goes out to her husband
and her children,' Warwick
said. 'Prayers will be said to keep them strong.'
Summer released her last album,
Crayons, in 2008. It was her first full studio album in 17 years. She also
performed on American Idol that year with its top female contestants.