" My hair stood on end and I didn't want to get out of the car, I was so enraptured. " I remember pulling into a laundromat parking lot with my mother and hearing Ferry Cross The Mersey," recalls Gloria. Later on, as a teenager, it was the influx of British rock that made her heart beater faster. The old Cuban standards were always playing in our house and I sang as soon as I could talk."
I was actually quite shy, but music was my love and it would transport me. As well as scheduling issues, he'd have been way more expensive!"Įven before Gloria met Emilio in 1975, music was a big part of her life and she recalls her introduction to it: " I was just four or five years old. " Alex is a phenomenal writer and we're lucky that we hired him before he won the Oscar. She was the protective Cuban mum thinking 'Gloria's going off with a musician, is he marrying her for her or for her voice?' Gloria's reaction was " Really? Let me introduce you to my mother! ' I loved and adored her but she was very rough on Emilio for the first 12 years of our marriage. Interestingly, Dinelaris joked with them that they were a nightmare to write for because " there's no conflict".
The Estefans spent a year and a half talking through the script of the musical with writer Alexander Dinelaris, who later won an Oscar for film Birdman.