Here’s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media & culture: 02/05/24

Survivor. With a signature song that also perfectly serves as as a fitting theme for her life, a seventies superstar reflects on the life that led up to the aptly titled film documentary Gloria Gaynor: I Will Survive which debuts in theaters next Monday (Feb. 13th) as a one-night-only Fathom Event.

JWK: I saw the film. It’s very good. You certainly have been through a lot. You’re kind of the personification of I Will Survive. You say at one point in the movie that you feel like God entrusted you with the song.

Gloria Gaynor: Yes, I do…It’s incredible that He would entrust me to do something like that. I really stand in awe of a God who gives talent, abilities and assignments with which to bless others and yet, while you are doing it, you are being even more blessed than they are.

JWK: Why do you think the song, which you first sang way back in 1978, has such resonance after all these years? It seems to connect with all kinds of people, not just people who have been through bad relationships.

GG: That’s because people are always going through things that they feel are insurmountable and yet hope they’ll survive. The song celebrates the tenacity of the human spirit.

JWK: More recently you moved from disco into the world of gospel music but met with resistance. Why do you think that was?

GG: I think there probably have been some people along the way who have wanted to do gospel music (and) they came up with a gospel song or they managed to gather some gospel songs but didn’t want to continue in it and didn’t have any revealed spiritual connection to it. They’d just rather not waste their time with somebody that’s in it for a minute.

JWK: How did this documentary come about? You were filming it for eight years, right?

GG: My manager Stephanie Gold is the one that initiated that. (She) got in contact with the people to do it and all of that. I had done a couple of books in which I told my story. She said that should be on screen.

JWK: One of the things in the film that’s so interesting is that you started college at age 65 and got yourself a psychology degree. Tell me a little bit about that experience.

GG: Because I was raised without a father my initial impetus for that was to open an organization where young men – young estranged fathers – would be taught how important they are in the lives of their children. I grew up without a father and know how important fathers are in the lives of their children. So, I wanted to open the door of an organization (for) young men to learn that they need to be in their children’s lives whether they live with them or not. So, I went for that.

Then, after I finished college and went about trying to initiate that, I found out that these young men don’t want to hear from me – at least not in that capacity, because they look at me and they see the mother of the child that they’re not attending to and they feel put down, persecuted and all of that, just by seeing me. So, I have decided – in fact, quite recently – to join an organization of men that are already doing that. I will support them by being a voice of the abandoned daughter – and I’ll support them financially.

JWK: Tell me about the making of your Testimony album for which you won a Grammy Award in 2020 in the Best Roots Gospel Album category, forty years after your initial Grammy win in the Best Disco Recording category in 1980 for I Will Survive.

GG:The first thing that my manager did was look for a producer that would be willing to produce for a year on a gospel album. She found Chris Stevens because he had done a couple of duet records that she really liked. She contacted him and asked if he would be interested in the project. He was, not only because he had done gospel music projects before but because he was a big disco fan and quite liked me and my music. So, it was a really good combination, a good connection. Then he got in touch with other gospel artists to join me for duets to give it more appeal to the gospel world. I got Yolanda Adams to collaborate with me on the album. It was a fun thing to do. It was wonderful working with all of the artists. As far as the rest of the documentary is concerned, it was just great…It was a wonderful time. It was tedious at times and difficult at times but it was always great.

JWK: It occurred to me while watching the movie that there are similarities between disco and gospel. Of course, gospel is more faith based but they both tend to be optimistic in tone. What are your thoughts on that?

GG: Whether people relate to gospel music the way they relate to disco music or not, the music relates to them. The same thing with disco music. It relates to the public. It relates to the people. It relates to their struggles and their trials, their relations and happy times and their bad times. You know, it’s relatable.

JWK: The movie goes into a lot of details about your friendship with Stephanie Gold, your manager. That seems to be an important relationship in your life.

GG: It is very important. I really believe that that’s a divine appointment because we are like sisters. We fight and we come back together and the fight is over and forgotten about in two seconds. We support one another. We uplift and encourage one another. She encourages me more than I encourage her but there have been those times when I’ve been there for her. I will always be there for her. So, that’s a very, very important relationship in my life. As I say, I believe it’s a divine appointment.

JWK: How long have you two known each other?

GG: I met Stephanie I think in 1994 or 1995, somewhere in there. She was working for my booking agent. A couple of weeks after I was working with her I bought her a sign to go over her desk that said “Do you want to speak to the man in charge or the woman who made this man?” He didn’t like that too much but she loved it. I bought that because I had seen her tenacity, her willingness to work hard, make sure things got done and make sure no stone was unturned in looking for work and opportunities for me and all of that – even as a booking agent. So, it only made sense for me to contact her after my divorce when I was looking for management. I wasn’t looking for her as a manager. I was looking for her to be a  personal assistant. It was no time before I realized that, just by who she is, she was actually a manager.

JWK: The movie also chronicles your struggle with severe back pain following an onstage accident in 1978. I would imagine I Will Survive also is an inspiration for people dealing with chronic pain and medical issues to keep on going.

GG: I think anybody can relate anything to it. That’s what makes the song so popular. It is so relatable no matter what struggle you’re going through. (It may be) seemingly insurmountable, yet you will survive.

JWK: I guess that’s, more or less, what you hope people take from your story.

GG: What I hope people take from my story is my faith and how important it is and how it’s been a vehicle for every success that I’ve had – and that they can have that as well. I hope they want that. I hope I inspire a desire for a relationship with Christ because of the healing – physical, emotional, spiritual and even physical healing – that it has brought to my life. I’m hoping that people, you know, say “I think I’m gonna try that. What can it hurt?”

JWK: Has faith always been an important part of your life?

GG: Yes. When I was 16 years old I asked my mother to take me to church so that I could be baptized. Then I kind of forgot about it but thank God He didn’t. So, I kind of strayed away and then, after my mother passed away, kind of lost my moral compass for a couple of years. Then the Lord just kind of jacked me up and brought me back.

JWK: Your story is so dramatic on so many levels that it strikes me that there could a scripted feature about your life. Have you ever thought about – and who would play you?

GG: I don’t know. I was kind of toying with the idea at one time and I thought that I would like Kerry Washington.

JWK: Is there anything you’d like to say as we wrap up?

GG: Enjoy the documentary. I’m hoping that you take away something from it that adds meaning and purpose to your life.

____

An Animal House graduate makes good. For better or worse, the politically incorrect raunchy college comedy that launched Karen Allen‘s film career in 1978 probably couldn’t get made in today’s creative climate. That film, however, is but one of nearly 70 screen roles on the veteran actress’ impressive screen resume. The most iconic one being being that of Marion Ravenwood, the love interest of Harrison Ford in three Indiana Jones movies, starting with 1981’s classic Raiders of the Lost Ark (see above) and extending through 2008’s Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and last year’s Dial of Destiny.

Her latest part is that Bonnie Copeland, the mother Charley Copeland (Cynthia Geary), the head nurse at the fictional Sunset House hospice in the second-season finale of the hit Great American Pure Flix dramedy Going Home.

JWK: So, how did you come to role of Charley’s mother on Going Home?

Karen Allen: I had worked with the producer of the show many, many years ago. I did a film that he directed and produced with Peter Coyote. He thought of me for the role and sent me the script. I read it and I was really quite wonderfully surprised, first of all, that there was a show about hospice to begin with because I think it’s an extremely important issue having had my mom, my sister and my dad pass in the last couple of years. I’ve been very involved with hospice situations  and I have a couple of friends who are death doulas who help people pass. I was really quite knocked out. You know, there are a lot of shows about hospitals and things like that. I think in the US we tend to try to avoid conversations about death. So, I was excited by what this show was trying to say and do and be about. I felt quite eager to dive in and just be a part of it. 

JWK: So, you had three members of your family in hospice care?

KA: My father for the shortest period of time because he then had a massive heart attack and passed. My mom was in hospice care on and off for about four years as she kind of went in and out of being close to death. My sister was in hospice care on and off as well.

JWK: Wow. You have a lot of experience with hospice. How did doing this show affect you? You had a lot to draw on, I guess.

KA: My (character’s) daughter runs the hospice center. If I come back and do some more episodes on the show I guess it will get into hospice care in relation to my character. My (first) episode isn’t really directly about hospice, necessarily, but I admire that the show is. 

JWK: What was it like working with Cynthia Geary as your daughter. She told me that she had a great time working with you.

KA: I had a great time working with her! We really clicked. It was great.

JWK: How would you describe the character of her mother?

KA: How would I describe her? She’s a very bright, active woman who is starting to have to face some issues that have to do with age and health. She’s in resistance to what’s happening to her, I guess. She wants to sort  stay in a state of denial about the fact that she’s getting quite ill.

JWK: What is she dealing with?

KA: We don’t really know yet. Maybe in the next episodes we will. We just know she has gotten a bad diagnosis.

JWK: Of course there’s a faith element to Going Home. You’re associated with what is one of the most financially successful faith-themed movies in history with Raiders of the Lost Ark. You reprised your character as Marion Ravenwood in two sequels, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and, most recently, in Dial of Destiny. What has your experience with the Indiana Jones film series been like and how has it changed your life?

KA: You know, at the time I made it I was a young actor who had done three films. I think it gave me a much stronger career. It gave me a chance to do a lot of things I wanted to do. I was a theater actress in the beginning of my career and it gave me the opportunity to, basically, go back and work in the theater. When I did Raiders of the Lost Ark, I went back and did a play on Broadway for a year and a half. Then I did a play Off-Broadway for three or four months. Eventually, I went back and did more films. The crux of it is it gave me freedom to what I wanted to do. That’s the best way to describe it.

JWK: Over the course of the three Indiana Jones films you appeared in, are you satisfied with way the arc of the relationship between him and your character, Marion Ravenwood, ended?

KA: It couldn’t have ended much better, right? I mean you have a sense that they’re gonna be together for maybe the rest of their lives. So, that’s pretty great.

JWK: By the way, you were talking about your family earlier. Your father was an FBI agent. What was it like growing up in that situation?

KA: You know, I was a kid. We moved around a lot so that was challenging. We ended up in Washington, D.C. but he was in a lot of different offices previous to that. We moved every year or every other year in my youth. So, there was a challenge to that – particularly for my mother. You know, it’s a fairly secretive profession. I knew he was in the FBI but I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone what my dad did for a living. I always said he worked for the Department of Justice. You know, there was some sort of cool mystery about it. As a kid, you know, it seemed like “Ooo! The FBI!”

JWK: Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.!

KA: They’re under fire today but, at the time, they were highly, highly respected. My dad was very proud of being in the FBI.  I don’t know how he’d feel today.

JWK: Meanwhile, your son is a personal chef who actually won when he competed on the Food Network show Chopped in 2016. That must have been exciting.

KA: It was really exciting to see him on the show and see him win! He was really young. He was like 22 or something. He might have been one of the youngest people to ever win.

JWK: So, what’s next for you? Hopefully, you recur on Going Home going forward. Any other plans?

KA: I’m on my way to India right now, just a kind of fun, interesting trip. Then I’m gonna shoot a film in Hawaii when I get back. I’m gonna shoot another film with Stephen Lang in Upstate New York. I’ve got a film that I’m gonna direct probably in the spring of 2025. I did a play this winter with Reed Birney that we would like to take to London. I don’t know how I’m gonna do all these things but, anyway, (it was) the world premiere of Donald Margulies’ Lunar Eclipse. He’s one of my favorite playwrights. We did it maybe three months ago. We finished in October. We want to take to New York, London, Chicago or somewhere and do it again. It’s just a gorgeous play. It’s a two-character play. So, those are kind of all the things on my plate right now. It’s a crowded plate.