Children Joey Stivic | Gender Female Last appearance An Uncredited Woman | |
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Gloria Stivic (née Bunker), is a fictional character played by Sally Struthers on the American situation comedy All in the Family, which aired on the CBS television network from 1971 until 1979. She was the only child of Archie and Edith Bunker, and she was married to Michael Stivic. She was born 11 months after Edith and Archie were married as stated in the episode The Longest Kiss (Season 5, Episode 10).
Character overview
Gloria was often caught in the middle of arguments between her liberal husband Michael and her conservative father, Archie. As her relationship with Michael progressed, Gloria concluded that her parents were wrong about a lot of things and sided with her husband's liberal beliefs. Despite his affections for her, Michael was also using his marriage to get the long-sheltered Gloria to share his own beliefs as well.
Gloria's mother mentioned (in the pilot) that Gloria was anemic and was therefore overprotected as a child. Archie often referred to Gloria as his "little goil" [girl].
In season 7's "Mike and Gloria Meet", it is explained that Mike and Gloria met in 1969, the evening of President Nixon's inauguration (Mike had been planning to protest the event, but opted to go on a blind date with Gloria instead). They did not initially like one-another, until they discovered that they shared a mutual love of ballroom dancing. They married in 1970 in Archie and Edith's home in a civil ceremony (as a means of compromise between Archie's wish that they be married by a Protestant minister and Mike's Uncle Cass' preference of a Catholic priest).
Gloria was the main breadwinner for the couple during the first five years of their marriage while they lived in her parents' home. With Michael attending college, initially for his bachelor's degree, then continuing for his master's, Gloria worked full-time at a department store. She was sensitive about having only a high school education and sometimes felt that Mike talked to her in a condescending fashion, particularly during arguments.
Upon Mike's graduation, he and Gloria moved to the neighboring rental house owned by former Bunker neighbor George Jefferson:, the house in which the Jefferson had resided between seasons 1 and 5. At that time Gloria became pregnant. She then had a boy, Joey Stivic, and became a stay-at-home mother, while Michael began his teaching career. The Stivics later moved to Santa Barbara, California after Michael was offered a better paying associate professor's position at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).
The Stivic marriage was tested after Gloria engaged in an affair with Bud Kreeger, a college faculty colleague of her husband. Gloria confessed this affair to her parents, while remaining silent about sleeping with him, during Archie and Edith's Christmas visit to California.
Michael and Gloria would later get arrested for engaging in a nude protest at a proposed site for nuclear power plant. This action would cost Michael his well-paid job at UCSB and left both of the Stivics cash-strapped. Eventually, Michael would abandon his family to join a commune with one of his college students, betraying the promise he gave Archie before leaving for California that he would always look out for Gloria and Joey.
Struthers continued playing the character of Gloria Bunker in guest appearances on Archie Bunker's Place and on the 1982–1983 related series Gloria, in which she was divorced from her husband Michael and working in a veterinarian's office in upstate New York.