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| Gloria Loring, actress, author, singer, songwriter |
Forty
Three Steps That Softened Stage Fright
by Gloria Loring
I remember being aware of how calm I felt all
day. As if it was just another day. Not like it was the day I was singing two
nominated songs on the Academy Awards. I arrived for rehearsal at the Dorothy
Chandler Pavillion and was escorted to the stage. The stage manager took me to
the top of the grand staircase from which I would make my entrance, singing as
I descended its forty-three steps, looking out at the audience. And in high
heels! The rehearsal went smoothly, and I was taken back to my dressing room.
Until the broadcast, I calmly futzed with my makeup and hair, and sang through
the songs.
When it was finally time for my performance, I
was taken backstage. The show, beaming live to over a billion people, halted
for a commercial. Up to the top of the staircase I climbed. The microphone was
put in my hand. The music swelled.
“Welcome back,” said Bob Hope. “Our next two
nominated songs are “Candle on the Water” and...”
The spotlight found me. I looked down that long
flight of stairs and suddenly felt brain dead, as if all sense and sensibility
had left me. I was blank. Barely able to breathe. I tried to think of the first
line I was to sing. Nothing. The curtains opened. Bob Hope was finishing my
introduction. The music began.
Another aspect of my being began coaching me.
An unstuck part of me talking to the paralyzed part. “Gloria, you know how to
do this. You haven’t prepared all these years to lose it now.”
I opened my mouth, and the words I had
rehearsed for weeks came out on their own accord, as if a smarter part of me
had taken over. I was singing and I wasn’t falling down the stairs. As I
completed each step of the staircase and each phrase of the song, I felt more
confident, more certain I would get through it without humiliating myself in front
of one billion people.
I learned two important things that day. One: I
can talk myself into or out of most anything. Two: Never underestimate the
power of rehearsal. You teach the brain and body what to do, and they will come
to your aid when you need them.
Even now, after singing my hit song “Friends
and Lovers” for more than twenty-five years, if I’m giving a performance, I
spend time just before the show quietly going over the words I will sing. I
know that once those first lines are out of my mouth, the smarter part of me
will take over.
As with most undertakings, whether writing,
speaking, singing or reorganizing your closet, the hardest part is just getting
started.
The former “Liz Chandler”
on Days of Our Lives, Gloria Loring is a singer, songwriter,
actress and author. Her most recent book is Coincidence Is God’s Way
of Remaining Anonymous, noted as a “compelling journey of show
business, mystery and miracles.”
Her website is www.glorialoring.com. And she’s at wwwfacebook.com/GloriaLoring, and www.twitter.com/GloriaLoring
Synopsis
Ten
million daily viewers loved her as Liz Chandler on the soap opera Days of Our Lives. Yet while the
cameras rolled and the fictional plotline for Days unfolded each day, Loring
was quietly wrestling with her own real-life dramas—the diagnosis of her young
son's diabetes, the unraveling of her marriage, and a nagging inner voice from
childhood that told her something was wrong.
Coincidence Is God's Way of Remaining Anonymous is Loring's spiritual exploration of how
coincidence helped her make sense of life's challenges and uncertainties. Coincidence helped her raise $1 million for
diabetes research; it arrived in the form of mysterious letters during her
separation and eventual divorce from actor-writer Alan Thicke; and it helped
her discover and then heal from the trauma of long-forgotten childhood sexual
abuse. It also brought her a chance encounter with the man she is married to
today. With eloquence and humor, Loring takes readers on a quest for a deeper
understanding of life's journey and the role coincidence plays in all of our
lives, revealing that even the most difficult circumstances can be beneficial.
Her experiences may be just the evidence readers need to begin watching more
closely what they are attracting and what they are running from in their own
lives.
While
coincidences may appear to come out of the blue, Loring suggests that we can
all play a starring role in their appearance. "For years, I'd been waiting
for someone else to make (my life) better. You'd have thought I was starring in
"The Perils of Pauline." In truth, I wasn't a victim, I was a
volunteer. . . . Coincidence gave me an experience of the lesson I needed to
learn: You don't have to wait for someone to save you."
About the Author
When not starring on the soap opera Days of Our
Lives, Gloria Loring expresses herself with music. She is the recording artist
of the #1 hit song Friends and Lovers as well co-composer of television theme
songs Diff’rent Strokes and Facts Of Life. Gloria’s new musical show TV Tunez,
a celebration of television’s best theme songs that earned standing ovations,
is in development for a Las Vegas run. She is currently in the studio with
producer Ted Perlman and songwriting legends Burt Bacharach and Desmond Child.
After her four-year-old son was diagnosed with
diabetes, she created and self-published two volumes of the Days Of Our Lives Celebrity Cookbook which raised more than $1
million for diabetes research. She has also written Kids, Food and Diabetes, Parenting
a Child with Diabetes, The Kids, Food
& Diabetes Family Cookbook, and Living
With Type 2 Diabetes: Moving Past the Fear. Gloria was honored by the
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation with the Lifetime Commitment Award and
the Founders Award from the National Disease Research Interchange.
The Miss America Organization gave her the
Woman of Achievement Award, an honor she shares with past recipients Barbara
Bush, Roslyn Carter, and Hillary Clinton. She is listed in Who’s Who in America
and Who’s Who of American Women.
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| Gloria Loring performing |
Just Thought You Should Know
366 million people worldwide have diabetes according to the International Diabetes
Federation. During Gloria’s tour the American Diabetes Association will be
sponsoring their annual Alert Day on March 26. A chance for everyone to take a
short online quiz to learn about their chances of developing diabetes. But you
can help your readers take the quiz during Gloria’s visit to your blog by
downloading the quiz from www.diabetes.org
Author's Websites:
Gloria Loring’s website:
Gloria Loring’s website:
Facebook:
Twitter:
@TheGloriaLoring
Thanks for stopping by!
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