Gloria Estefan

Trivia

• In 1984 and 1985 the group released several singles from their albums, one of which, “Hot Summer Nights” was to feature in the movie Top Gun which starred Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer.
• Gloria’s success with the group was such that the group name was changed to Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine and later the Sound Machine was dropped altogether and Gloria was seen as a solo artist with the band as her backing group.
• The success of Gloria and her backing group was to be phenomenal as she gained recognition both in the USA, Europe and in the United Kingdom.
• The single “Cuts Both Ways’ which was taken from her album of the same name sold over 10 million copies and went platinum within its first month of release in the U.S.
• The success followed in the UK, where it debuted at number one, with Gloria being the first act in 10 years to have two number one albums on the UK albums chart in one calendar year.
• In 1990 while touring in Pennsylvania, Gloria was critically injured when her tour bus crashed into a tractor trailer.
• Her injuries included a fractured spine which took Gloria a year to recover from after intensive physical therapy and specialized operations to place titanium rods into her spinal column.
• She returned to the tour within ten months of the accident.
• In 1980 Gloria and Emilio had their first child, a boy, Nayib and in 1994 they had a daughter, Emily Marie.
• Once again Gloria had two cover versions of her album tracks which took on hit status, “Turn the Beat Around” featured in the Sharon Stone movie, The Specialist and “Its Too Late” originally by Carole King did well in the Contemporary radio.

Quotes

• “very passionate, all about love, very sensual.”
• “Music of My Heart”
• “We protect aspirin bottles in this country better than we protect guns from accidents by children, ... Always Tomorrow.”
• “The separation of families to me is very close to my heart because we lived that as immigrants. I strongly feel that we are all connected, and having felt people's love and support first hand through difficult moments in my life, makes me feel it's our responsibility to help one another. I am privileged to help in some way and I will always take that opportunity.”
• “They are smaller shelters in great need of many things. We are taking things that they specifically requested that they need at this moment.”
• “As an artist, you dream about accumulating enough successful music to someday do just one greatest-hits album, but to reach the point where you're releasing your second collection of hits is beyond belief.”
• “The separation of families to me is very close to my heart because we lived that as immigrants. I am privileged to help in some way and I will always take that opportunity.”
• “We want it to be clarified to us why this family, who has been guarding this boy, is being compelled to betray his trust and hand him over on a silver platter.”
• “Miami's number-one power couple.”
• “I'm totally animal-oriented, ... I've got nine dogs, eight birds, turtles, fish and I had wallabies at one point.”