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The ultımate POP survıvor
Illicit romance, a rift with her mother, a near-fatal crash – and 100 million albums sold. Gloria Estefan tells of the drama in a new stage show about her life
All Gloria Estefan’s contemporaries are having biopics made about their lives. She went to see Rocketman, the film of Elton John’s life the other day – odd, she admits, given that she knows him personally. Before that it was Freddie Mercury’s life up on the big screen. ‘ It definitely makes you think about fame and how people deal with it,’ she says. ‘The common factor is that people like this are, at heart, rather shy. So they find different ways of dealing with success. That’s where the drugs come in.’
Does she have any stories of drug-fuelled debauchery herself? She must have, given that she’s been in the pop world for over 40 years. She clutches the sofa. ‘Are you kidding me? I’m from a Cuban Catholic family. I went to school with the nuns. I was married with a child by the time I was having hits. The first time I saw a joint I was in a music studio and I didn’t know what it was. Someone had to explain.’ So that’s a no then. She looks part proud, part apologetic. ‘I don’t even like to get drunk. I don’t like the feeling of not being in control.’
Bizarrely, given how things usually work in showbiz, she has not only eschewed the rock’n’roll lifestyle, but she’s also been married to the same man, Emilio, for over 40 years. They met when she was 17 and he was her first serious boyfriend. So that means – and we may be getting a tad too personal here – she’s never been with anyone else? ‘No. He’s the only one,’ she laughs. ‘He says that because I’ve only been with him I don’t know any different. But I say why should I worry about the hamburgers I didn’t have when I had filet mignon at home.’
Gosh, one imagines that she might have been tempted to be just a little debauched. Madonna and she appeared on the scene at the same time, and she managed it. She leans in. ‘I like the idea of toyboys,’ she confides. ‘But I’d be worried that I wouldn’t be able to stop myself saying, “But have you brushed your teeth?”’
Well, glory be for an audience with Gloria Estefan. She’s one of those true showbiz legends with a life story that seems designed to be told on the stage. Now it too has been given the dramatic treatment, not for a biopic but for a West End stage show. On Your Feet! tells the story of how her family was forced to flee Communist Cuba and of how the shy little girl with the huge voice eventually became a superstar, selling 100 million albums, winning 3 Grammy awards and 4 Latin Grammys, and singing for presidents. The show
opened in the States in 2015, and there have been productions all over the world. Quite surreal, she admits during a visit to Britain for rehearsals for the UK opening.
She talks today of meeting ‘all the Glorias’, by which she means all the actresses who have played her in the various productions around the world. While the jukebox musical – crammed with Miami Sound Machine hits – is a toe-tapping delight, it’s also a rather epic tale of love, loss, estrangement and ambition. It’s a timely tale too, in Trump’s America, of immigration and how those who flee to freedom can end up shaping a country and its culture. ‘Exactly,’ she says. ‘It was important to say, “These are the stories of immigrants”.’
Born in Havana in 1957, Gloria was just a toddler when her parents fled Cuba after Castro had seized power. Her father Jose Fajardo had worked as a personal bodyguard for the ousted president Fulgencio Batista. After coming to the US, Jose was recruited into the 2506 Brigade, a CIA-funded band of Cuban refugees involved in the unsuccessful 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.
He was captured and spent two years in prison.
After then-US president John F Kennedy negotiated the release of the soldiers, Jose rejoined his family. He joined the US Army and served for two years in Vietnam, only to be diagnosed with multiple sclerosis on his release, possibly as a result of being exposed to the jungle defoliant Agent Orange. Her father’s illness – and her mother’s attempts to provide for the fami ly – came to define young Gloria’s life. She says she became incredibly emotional watching the on-stage version of herself tend her father, as she did until his death in 1980. Music was her escape, even then, and she would alternate her nursing duties with fleeing to her room to sing. ‘There is one particular song that’s in this show that my father used to sing and when I heard it this great lump formed in my throat,’ she says now.
Also difficult to watch – for everyone involved – was the unfolding saga of her relationship with her mother, Gloria senior (‘I never think of myself as Gloria, because Gloria was always my mother,’ she confides). Gloria Fajardo, known as Big Gloria by the family, was a powerhouse, a largerthan-life matriarch who was ultimately her daughter’s heroine, although that journey took some time.
Her mum died in 2017, and today Gloria chokes up while talking about her. A schoolteacher, Big Gloria had showbiz ambitions herself. As a young woman she had won a contest to be Shirley Temple’s double in Hollywood, but the volatile political situation in Cuba – not to mention her own father’s disapproval – thwarted a career in the limelight. A highly intelligent woman, she struggled to get work in the States because she didn’t have the necessary paperwork. But she juggled a daytime job with returning to night classes to gain qualifications. ‘She taught me that you can do anything you put your mind to,’ admits Gloria.
The relationship was fraught though, particularly when the teenage Gloria met a young percussionist called
Emilio, whose family had also fled Cuba. Emilio had a band that was in need of a singer.
Big Gloria was horrified. She was even more horrified when the relationship started to develop from a professional one to a romance. ‘She thought Emilio was trouble,’ Gloria laughs. ‘She thought – rightly – that he would take me away from the path she wanted for me, which was to get my education and a good job.’
That love story between Gloria and Emilio – who went on to form Miami Sound Machine and have a string of hits like Dr Beat and Rhythm Is Gonna Get You – is at the heart of the show. Everything about it is epic. ‘I wouldn’t have had the career I’ve had if it wasn’t for Emilio, absolutely not. He was the driving force,’ she admits.
That their mar riage has lasted also seems a miracle, given how fleeting most showbiz unions are. ‘What can I say? He makes me laugh, always has.’ Her mother didn’t see the attraction, and refused to accept Emilio for an astonishing 12 years. ‘To his credit, Emilio never made me choose,’ she says.
Their music, with its distinctive Latin beat, was niche to start with. At first the band concentrated on Latin fans, singing in Spanish. Then a crucial decision was made to perform some songs in English – opening up a mainstream audience. Bingo! Through the 80s the hits kept coming. Then, around 1988, Gloria invited her younger sister to join them on tour. Her mother was furious. ‘She didn’t speak to me for two years. She thought I was leading her astray too.’
A stubborn woman, Big Gloria might not have mended things with her daughter had it not been for a lifechanging event in 1990. The band’s tour bus was involved in a horrific accident in Pennsylvania when a truck ploughed into them and Gloria was badly injured. Indeed, early press reports suggested she had died. ‘My mother was teaching and on a TV in the staff room she saw the news and a ticker tape saying “Gloria Estefan dead”. She collapsed on the floor.’
Big Gloria was on the next flight, and there was a tearful reunion at the hospital bedside. ‘ Nothing that went before mattered,’ Gloria admits.
She had broken her back, and was told it was unlikely she would walk again, yet she not only did but she ended up back on stage dancing. A miracle, or sheer determination? ‘I
was incredibly lucky,’ she says. ‘It took quite a while for the paramedics to reach us and I was always confused about why I could remember snow inside the bus. Well they use ice when they’re treating spinal injuries. Without it, who knows?’
Her relationship with her mother was healed. Big Gloria even thawed towards Emilio. ‘He adored her and treated her like a queen. Eventually she admitted she’d been wrong about him. Eventually.’
In her later years, Big Gloria got her own stardom of sorts. Gloria posted hilarious clips of her mum, in her eighties, rapping. Gloria rocks back and forth on the sofa today talking about how funny her mum was. Then she wells up. ‘I miss her every day. You are never ready to lose your mother.’
Gloria and Emilio have two children, Nayib and Emily, and are now grandparents themselves. They are widely regarded as Miami’s first couple. On the night we meet, she confides that Emilio is heading out to dinner with actor Antonio Banderas, a family friend. As you do. Is it true they own half of Miami? Another laugh. ‘Well, not exactly half,’ she says. ‘But we did invest in real estate, which was just as well, given how the music industry has gone.’
This side of Gloria’s life is also hardly your typical rock’n’roll tale. She says she always knew that ‘a
woman’s shelf life in this business is shorter than a man’s’, hence the pouring of her millions into bricks and mortar. The pair own several hotels, including one she vowed to her father she would buy. They have just completed a £12 million refurbishment.
And yet, against all the odds, she is still singing, still performing. She doesn’t jump at the idea of being reminded she is now 61 (‘they always say Gloria Estefan, 61, which they don’t say with men’) but at the same time she isn’t the sort to have had everything lifted and tweaked. While Madonna seems to have gone in the other direction, Gloria wears a navy suit and the only bling comes in the form of chandelier earrings. ‘But I never really did that “sexy” thing,’ she says. ‘Other people might have seen me as a sex symbol, but not me.’
And no plastic surgery either? ‘No, none,’ she says, then throws her hands up. ‘Oh actually I have. When they sewed me up after the accident, Emilio insisted that a plastic surgeon did it, so I have the neatest scar you’ve ever seen running all the way down my back. He wanted me to be happy.’
The ultimate survival symbol, surely?
‘I never really did the “sexy” thing’
On Your Feet! is at the London Coliseum until 31 August, ahead of a national tour. For details and tickets, see onyourfeetmusical.co.uk.