Gloria Gaynor documentary follows disco icon's 4-year comeback journey and resilience

Gloria Gaynor's disco bop "I Will Survive" quickly cemented its place in pop culture upon release in 1978, and is still celebrated around the globe. The song resonates with all demographics, and has become an unofficial anthem for sports teams, those going through a breakup, the LGBTQ community during the AIDS crisis and more.

Unbeknownst to Gaynor, who had already endured a perilous childhood and recorded the song while recovering from a serious back injury, the tune and lyrics would exemplify the turbulent decades to come as she endured her sister's murder, a traumatic marriage and divorce, and many more challenges.

A new documentary, "Gloria Gaynor: I Will Survive," combines archival footage with her recent career comeback journey, as well as footage of Gaynor recording the 2019 gospel album "Testimony." The film will have three screenings during the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

"Gloria Gaynor: I Will Survive" premiered in June at the Tribeca Film Festival, was the official opening night film at the Nashville Film Festival in September and won the Best Feature Documentary Award at the La Femme Women's International Film Festival in Los Angeles in October.

Early in the film, Gaynor and her manager Stephanie Gold explain how record labels were not interested in releasing an album by a singer in her 70s trying to reinvent herself. Gospel labels were also reluctant to take a chance on a secular artist such as Gaynor, even with a record featuring duets with popular gospel singer Yolanda Adams and Christian Contemporary artists Bart Millard of MercyMe and Jason Crabb of The Crabb Family.

Over four years, director Betsy Schechter filmed Gaynor during difficult moments in her career. She was also comfortable revealing the obstacles she faced while recording the album and from her past, which includes sexual abuse — at the hands of her mother's boyfriend at the age of 12 and again at 17 by her boyfriend's cousin — abuse and mismanagement from her now ex-husband, and health issues following her 1978 back injury.

During a recent interview, Gaynor said she expected the documentary to be a lengthy production process and was comfortable revealing the difficult parts of her life.

"I wanted to share with people that even though I'm an artist and what they look up to as 'a star,' we have the same kind of problems they have. We overcome them not because we're stars, but because we struggle, strive and go through the different things you have to get through these problems and situations. It's as possible for them as it is for us, because it has nothing to do with our careers," Gaynor said.

There were also things she recorded but didn't remember until she saw the film.

"I'm glad (those things) are in there, because they're touching, informative and encouraging. That's exactly what I wanted to do. There isn't anything in there I regret having done, there isn't anything that surprised me, but just 'Oh, I don't remember doing that,'" Gaynor said.

Even as Gaynor is shown making progress at times, there are setbacks, such as not being able to walk without pain. She was filmed being admitted to the hospital for the high-risk, two-part surgery on her spine that liberated her from several years of chronic pain and corrected her posture. She released "Testimony" with her own funds in 2019 and won a Grammy Award in 2020 for "Best Roots Gospel Album."

"We just kept looking for different avenues, ways to make it better, ways to get the songs we wanted for it and ways to get it out there, but I was never going to give up on it," Gaynor said.

'I didn't know where I would go from there'

Some of the archive footage featured in the film goes back to the '60s when Gaynor sang in The Soul Satisfiers, an R&B and jazz band. Members of the band continued to perform with her after she was signed to Columbia Records by Clive Davis. Even though the first single, "Honey Bee," was a flop, Gaynor's band rearranged the Jackson 5 hit song "Never Can Say Goodbye" with an open high-hat combined into its rhythm and a groovier bass line. It became a hit and was No. 1 on the first Dance/Disco chart to appear in Billboard.

In 1978, after Gaynor's back injury, Gaynor released a cover of The Righteous Brothers song "Substitute," which she was asked to record after the South African band Clout reached the top of the charts with its version.

"I went out to California to record a song that had been chosen by the new record company president, and I hated the song, but they had threatened to end my contract, and I didn't know where I would go from there," Gaynor said. "When I got out there, I asked them 'What's the B-Side?' (The producers) said, 'We don't know, what kind of songs do you like?' I said 'I like songs that are uplifting, inspiring, touch people's hearts and have good melodies.'"

That is where "I Will Survive" entered the picture, which was written by producers Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris. Fekaris told Songfacts he wrote the lyrics of the song about getting fired from his job as staff writer at Motown Records two years before Gaynor recorded it. A copy of the record was taken to Studio 54 in New York and handed to the DJ who played it and gave it to his friends, helping the song become a megahit.

"It confirms to me the fact I've always believed the song is a divine point and that God told these two guys to sit down, write a song, hold on to it and said 'I'm going to send you somebody,'" Gaynor said.

As Gaynor's star was rising, she married her husband Linwood Simon in 1979, who would also become her manager. But her issues with loneliness as a child and early adulthood made many years of Simon's mistreatment and mismanagement of career easy to ignore. Even though she described a vivid religious experience that changed the course of her life during the '80s in the documentary, it wasn't enough to divorce Simon until 2005 when she was near broke and her career was in peril.

"There are people in this business who have a personal life outside of their career, and I had that at one time — it ended," Gaynor said. "It happened in the beginning of my career when I was alone, then it happened after my marriage. You pick up the pieces, dust yourself off, and start all over again. Now I'm in a place, thank God, where I'm not alone and I know I'm never alone. I don't have that problem anymore A lot of people do, but I don't. I can be alone without being lonely, because spiritually, I am loved," Gaynor said.

'Disco music is alive and well'

In spite of it all, Gaynor, who celebrated her 80th birthday in September, is surviving and thriving. She recently completed construction on a brand-new home in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, performed in July at a charity gala with Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, and has an EP of new songs coming in 2024.

In 2015, she shared her story as a sexual abuse survivor during a Woman's Leadership Conference at Coastal Carolina University in South Carolina, and she also earned a psychology degree from Walden University at the age of 65

"I wanted to understand the mind and workings of fathers, because I grew up without a father. I knew the toll it took on me, my brothers, and sister. I wanted to open an organization that would help fathers understand how important they are in the lives of their children and [why] they need to be in the lives of their children," Gaynor said. "Someone asked if I needed to have a psychology background so I could help them understand that, and I didn't feel like my experiences being raised in a single-parent home were enough."

But like Gaynor, disco music also survived. Even though the genre endured a backlash before the end of the '70s, it lived on through electronic dance music and later reinvented itself in new genres such as house music and "nu-disco."

"I tell people all the time, 'Disco is alive and well, living in the hearts of music lovers around the world and simply changed its name to protect the innocent," Gaynor said.

How to watch

What: "Gloria Gaynor: I Will Survive" screenings at the Palm Springs International Film Festival

When and where: 8 p.m., Jan. 6, at the Palm Springs Cultural Center; 10:30 a.m., Jan. 7 at the Annenberg Theater; 1:45 p.m., Jan. 10 at the Mary Pickford is D'Place

Cost: $15

More info: https://psfilmfest.org/film-festival-2024/film-finder

Desert Sun reporter Brian Blueskye covers arts and entertainment. He can be reached at brian.blueskye@desertsun.com or on Twitter at @bblueskye.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Gloria Gaynor reveals adversities and triumph in new documentary