Paul Jabara

 Paul Jabara and Donna Summer

You might not know the name, but you know the music. Songwriter, producer, singer and actor Paul Jabara (1948-1992), of Lebanese ancestry, won an Academy Award in 1979 for writing the Donna Summer disco hit "Last Dance" (Oscar for best original song for 1978's �Thank God It�s Friday�). A native of Brooklyn, NY, he made his Broadway debut in the original cast of �Hair,� going on to create the role of King Herod in the original London production of �Jesus Christ Superstar.�

Although he wrote songs for Barbra Streisand (�The Main Event�), Bette Midler (�Jinxed�) and a duet for Streisand and Summer (�Enough Is Enough�), he is perhaps better known as the author of �It�s Raining Men� (The Weather Girls). Jabara also produced Streisand�s Grammy Award-winning �Broadway Album.� As a singer himself, he released seven albums. �Paul Jabara and Friends� (1983) featured a 19-year-old Whitney Houston.

The incomparable WEATHER GIRLS:

Paul�s movie career included roles in "Midnight Cowboy," "The Lords of Flatbush," "The Day of the Locust," "Honky-Tonk Freeway," "Star 80," "Legal Eagles" and "Light Sleeper." He also appear on television in "Starsky and Hutch," "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," "The Equalizer" and the made-for-television movies "The Last Angry Man" and "Out of the Darkness."

Jabara died from AIDS at just 44 years old. He is buried at the historic Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, alongside such gay luminaries as Leonard Bernstein, Fred Ebb (of Kander & Ebb), Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Dr. Richard Isay (see separate posts in sidebar).

LAST DANCE video -- Donna Summer

Sources:
Wikipedia
New York Times obituary (1992)