Gloria Loring

Early life

Loring was born in New York City, the daughter of Dorothy Ann (née Tobin), a singer, and Gerald "Buzzy" Lewis Goff, a professional trumpet player with Tommy Dorsey Big Band as well as other renowned Swing groups; a salesman and hospitality/restaurant industry consultant

Career

Loring began her music career at age 14, singing with a folk group known as Those Four. Loring released her first album in 1968. It was titled Gloria Loring, Today on MGM Records. Several singles, including cover versions of Harry Nilsson's "Everybody's Talkin'" and Roger Whittaker's "New World in the Morning" were released on the Evolution label, though none charted. She went on to perform on a wide range of television shows in the late 1960s and 1970s, from The Carol Burnett Show to the Academy Awards ceremony. Signed to Atco Records, she released the single "Brooklyn," produced by Mike Post, in 1977 under the alias Cody Jameson, and it became her first chart single, climbing to No. 74 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also appearing on the Adult Contemporary and Country Charts.

In 1979 and 1980, Loring and then-husband Alan Thicke composed the theme songs to Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life. 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 was used from seasons seven to nine.

Her son Brennan was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 1979. A year later, Loring 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 follow-up Volume Two in 1983. The cookbooks, along with her recording "A Shot in the Dark", raised more than $1 million for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation ("JDRF"). 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. JDRF is the official philanthropy of her college sorority, Alpha Gamma Delta.

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, with many veterans dropped and many new faces alienating long-time 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, in real-life, Loring dated Don Diamont, the actor who played the corrupt, long-lost son of her TV husband Dr. Neil Curtis.

In 1986, Loring scored a No. 2 Pop and No. 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 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 appeared on Days of Our Lives to sing the song with Loring) in 1985, its release as a single was delayed for a year by legal complications. Loring left Days in 1986 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, Loring released her first holiday album, You Make It Christmas. In 2008, she released A Playlist, which included a new recording of the song "Friends and Lovers" with Carl Anderson, recorded one year before he died.

Loring's book, Coincidence Is God's Way of Remaining Anonymous, is a spiritual autobiography of how a series of coincidences transformed her life. It was released October 2012 by HCI, Inc.

Personal life

Loring was married to actor Alan Thicke from 1970 until 1986. She has two sons with Thicke, Brennan and singer Robin.

Loring was married to actor Christopher Beaumont from 1988 to 1993. In 1994, Loring married production designer René Lagler. They had met 24 years earlier on the set of Glen Campbell's variety series.

Loring has been honored with the Lifetime Commitment Award from JDRF, and received the Woman of Achievement Award from the Miss America Organization. She has been featured in Who's Who in America.

Discography