Queer Places:
Green-Wood Cemetery, 500 25th St, Brooklyn, NY 11232, Stati Uniti
Paul
Jabara, also known as Paul Frederick Jabara, (January 31, 1948 – September 29,
1992) was an American actor, singer, and songwriter of Lebanese[1]
ancestry, born in Brooklyn, New York City.[2]
He wrote Donna Summer's "Last Dance" from Thank God It's Friday (1978)
and Barbra Streisand's song "The Main Event/Fight" from The Main Event
(1979). He cowrote The Weather Girls hit "It's Raining Men" with Paul Shaffer.
Jabara's cousin and close friend Jad Azkoul is also a Lebanese-American
musician specialising in classical guitar.
Jabara was in the original cast of the stage musicals Hair and
Jesus Christ Superstar. He took over the role of Frank-N-Furter in the Los
Angeles Production of The Rocky Horror Show when Tim Curry left the
production to film the movie version in England. He appeared in
John Schlesinger's
1969 film Midnight Cowboy, as a hippie handing out pills ("Up or
Down?") at the counterculture party, and in Schlesinger's 1975 film The Day
of the Locust, where he sang a cover of the
Marlene Dietrich
song "Hot Voo-Doo" in drag. In the 1978 film Thank God It's Friday he
played the role of Carl, the lovelorn and nearsighted disco goer, and he also
contributed as a singer on two tracks on the original soundtrack album. In
1981 Jabara starred in yet another John Schlesinger film, the comedy Honky
Tonk Freeway, as truck driver/songwriter T. J. Tupus, hauling lions and a
rhino.
Jabara wrote the book, music, lyrics and starred in an abortive Broadway
musical, Rachael Lily Rosenbloom (And Don't You Ever Forget It) which
played the Broadhurst Theatre in New York City in 1973. It closed in previews
prior to its official opening and was never reviewed by the press. No
recording was made of the score, which featured both Jabara's trademark disco
music as well as more traditional Broadway-style numbers.[3]
Jabara released his first album, Shut Out, in 1977. Jabara's solo
albums on the disco label Casablanca Records include three duets with Donna
Summer: "Shut Out" (1977), "Something's Missing (In My Life)" (1978) and
"Never Lose Your Sense Of Humor" (1979).
In 1979, the Donna Summer-performed "Last Dance" from the 1978 film
Thank God It's Friday won Jabara the Grammy Award for Best R&B Song, the
Academy Award for Best Original Song and the Golden Globe Award for Best
Original Song aswell. Jabara's album Paul Jabara & Friends, released in
1983, features guest vocals by a then 20-year-old Whitney Houston. It also
includes the song "It's Raining Men". That song was re-recorded several years
later by drag supermodel RuPaul and
Martha Wash. Wash sang on the original recording as part of the group The
Weather Girls.
Some other songs Jabara wrote for others to perform include:
- "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)", a duet by Barbra Streisand and
Donna Summer which was a Platinum-certified, #1 Billboard hit;
- "Jinxed!", 1981, written for Bette Midler and her movie of the same
name but never commercially released;
- "Work That Body", Diana Ross' a modest 1982 hit single included on her
Platinum album Why Do Fools Fall in Love;
- "Two Lovers" for Julio Iglesias (1984).
In 2005, a workshop of a musical entitled Last Dance played New York
City. It was a musical assembled from Jabara's well known disco songs and told
the story of a modern-day teenager who goes back in time to spend one night at
Studio 54.
Jabara died from AIDS complications[4]
after a long illness (of AIDS) in Los Angeles, California at the age of 44 on
September 29, 1992. He is buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.[5]
On June 14, 2014, Jabara was featured in the first gay-themed tour of
Green-Wood Cemetery, a National Historic Landmark.[6][7]
My published books:
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- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Jabara