Gloria Loring
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| Gloria Loring | |
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| Born | Gloria Jean Goff December 10, 1946 New York City, New York |
Gloria Loring (born Gloria Jean Goff; December 10, 1946) is an American singer and actress.
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[edit] Career
Loring began her music career at age 14, singing with a folk group known as "Those Four". Gloria Loring released her first album in 1968. It was titled "Gloria Loring, Today" on MGM Records. She went on to perform on a wide range of television shows in the 70's, from The Carol Burnett Show to the Academy Awards ceremony. A photograph of her can be seen at the site of her biography, http://www.castproductions.com/glorialoring.html.
In 1979 and 1980, Loring and then husband Alan Thicke co-composed the theme songs to Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life. The first season of Facts had the cast performing the theme, but the remainder of the run (1980–1988) featured Loring's rendition of the song which remains a strong memory for '80s sitcom devotees. There were two versions of the Facts of Life theme song that Loring sang. One version was used from seasons two through six and a second used from seasons seven to nine.
Her son Brennan was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 1979. A year later, she joined 'Days of Our Lives' and got the idea to create and self-publish the Days Of Our Lives Celebrity Cookbook to raise money for diabetes research. Volume One was published in 1981 and the followup Volume Two in 1983. The cookbooks, along with her recording A Shot in the Dark, raised more than one million dollars for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. She followed that success with three commercially published books, Kids, Food and Diabetes, Parenting a Child with Diabetes, and Living with Type 2 Diabetes: Moving Past the Fear. For the past 30 years, she has served as a spokesperson for JDRF.
In 1980, when Loring joined the NBC daytime soap Days of Our Lives as chanteuse Liz Chandler, the show was going through a dry spell at the time, with many veterans shown the door and many new faces alienating longtime fans. Of the nine new characters introduced in the 1980-1981 season, only Liz garnered a fan following, and was the only one to have her contract renewed. For three years, Loring dated Don Diamont, the actor who played the corrupt, long-lost son of her TV husband Dr. Neil Curtis. (Diamont would go on to find daytime stardom on The Young and the Restless as Brad Carlton.)
In 1986, Loring scored a #2 Pop and #1 Adult Contemporary hit record in the United States with "Friends and Lovers," with Carl Anderson (also a #1 Country hit in 1986 for Eddie Rabbitt and Juice Newton under the title "Both to Each Other"). Loring originally performed "Friends and Lovers" on Days of Our Lives dating back more than a year before the track finally hit the charts. Her performance of the song generated the largest mail response of any song in NBC daytime history. First recorded as a duet with Anderson (who would himself appear on Days of Our Lives to sing the song with Loring) in 1985, the single would have to wait an entire year before its eventual 1986 release, due to legal hassles.[1] Loring left Days that same year and made sporadic film and television appearances over the next few decades. Her main efforts were spent in theater and in her recording career (though "Friends and Lovers" was her only major hit single).
In 2003 Gloria released her first holiday album, You Make It Christmas. More recently Gloria has released "A Playlist" which includes a new recording of the song Friends and Lovers with Carl Anderson. Gloria made this recording just one year before Carl Anderson became sick and died.
Loring is currently completing a spiritual autobiography, Coincidence is God's Way of Remaining Anonymous, and working with musician and producer Ted Perlman on a new recording project.
[edit] Life
Loring was born in New York City, New York, the daughter of Dorothy Ann (née Tobin), a singer, and Gerald Louis Goff, a salesman and trumpet player.[2] Loring was married to actor Alan Thicke (Growing Pains) from 1970 until 1986. The marriage produced two sons, Brennan and Robin.
Robin started his own musical career as "Thicke". He has achieved success under his full name as a chart-topping R&B artist, and songwriter and producer for other artists, winning three Grammy Awards in the process. Robin married actress Paula Patton in 2005 after an eight-year relationship. Brennan married Kathleen "Dolly" MacDonald in 2007. They first met on the set of Days of Our Lives in 1985 playing children in the Christmas hospital scene. Brennan's son, Tyler, was born in May 2008, and Robin's son, Julian Fuego, was born April 2010.
In 1994, Loring married production designer René Lagler. They initially met 24 years earlier on the set of Glen Campbell's variety series. They met again on a plane in 1993, and Loring said she knew this was the man she was going to marry.
Loring has been honored with the Lifetime Commitment Award from JDRF, and received the Woman of Achievement Award from the Miss America Organization, an honor she shares with past recipients Barbara Bush, Roslyn Carter, and Hillary Clinton. She has been featured in Who's Who in America.
[edit] Discography
- Today, Gloria Loring - 1968 MGM Records (out of print)
- And Now We Come To Distances - 1970 Evolution Records (out of print)
- Sing a Song for the Mountain - 1972 Evolution Records (out of print)
- A Shot in the Dark - 1984 Glitz Records (out of print) This release includes the full version of "The Facts of Life"
- Gloria Loring - 1986 Atlantic Records (out of print) This release includes the original version of "Friends and Lovers" w/ Carl Anderson
- Full Moon/No Hesitation - 1988 Atlantic Records (out of print)
- Is There Anybody Out There - 1991 Silk Purse (out of print) This release includes a "solo" version of "Friends and Lovers"
- Turn The Page - 1999 Silk Purse (currently available)
- By Request - 2000 Silk Purse (currently available) This release includes an acoustic recording of "Tonight, I Celebrate my Love for You," the song adopted by Bo & Hope as their theme song on Days of Our Lives.
- Friends and Lovers - 2001 Silk Purse (currently available)
- You Make it Christmas - 2003 Silk Purse (currently available)
- A Playlist - 2008 Silk Purse (currently available) Twenty-three years after the original recording of "Friends and Lovers," Gloria and Carl Anderson re-recorded the song for this project, just one year prior to his death.
