DAYS Exclusive: Gloria Loring On How ‘Friends and Lovers’ Became A Hit
Gloria Loring holds the unique distinction of having a number one single during her original tenure as Liz Chandler on Days of our Lives. “Friends and Lovers,” a duet with Carl Anderson, was recorded in 1985 and released in the summer of 1986. The song — which the character of Belle recently name-checked on air — became the love theme for supercouple Kimberly and Shane, and quickly rose to the top of music charts.
“Do you know the story of how that came to be?” poses Loring. “Beth Milstein [former DAYS writer] was a very dear friend of mine when I was on the show. In the morning, maybe after the first run-through [of the day’s scenes], I would often go up to her office just to say, ‘How are you doing?’ One day I went up to her office; maybe it was on a lunch break. We were sitting and talking and I said, ‘I’m really getting saddened because I always thought that maybe I could have a hit record. And now instead of anybody thinking of me as a singer, they’re thinking of me as a soap opera actress, even though I sing on the show. I just feel like that may never come true.’ ”
From Dream to Reality
Milstein immediately questioned Loring about turning her dream into a reality. “She said, ‘Well, wait a minute. How could it happen?’ A very good question,” recounts Loring. “I sat and I thought and said, ‘Well, if I could find a really great song and start singing it on the show… I mean, we have 10 million viewers, and if they liked it enough, maybe we could do it again. And maybe if we got enough response, I could go to a record company and whatever.’ The very next day Beth called me and said, ‘Gloria, I went to dinner last night with some of the producers, and they were talking about a song that was sent into the show. I’d like to play it for you.’ So she played me this song – ‘What would you think if I told you?’ ” continues Loring, singing the first line of “Friends and Lovers.” “I stopped it after the first chorus and said, ‘That’s a hit song if I’ve ever heard one!’ ”
Without further ado, things were set in motion for Loring to start singing the song on DAYS the following week. “I sang it frequently, many, many times over several months,” recalls Loring. “We got a letter from the PR department or something like that, and they said that my singing that song had prompted more mail and phone in response than any piece of music on NBC television, ever. Also, about that time, someone I was dating went to see Carl Anderson perform at this place in Santa Monica. Afterwards, he told me, ‘I think I found the perfect person to sing that song with you,’ because it was supposed to be a duet.”
Loring eventually met up with Anderson, and “we sang through the song,” she continues. “We went ahead and recorded it in the studio of a friend of his. Then we shopped it around and every major record company turned it down. ‘No, it’s a duet. No, it’s a this. No, it’s a that.’ And I went, ‘Whatever.’ Finally, this small French company, Career Records, and this fellow [who worked there] said, ‘We’ll release it.’ And once it was released, it couldn’t be stopped! It just jumped up the charts and was a very big hit. Almost a million [sales], although not quite a million. Darn [laughs]. It was such an exciting time, oh my God. And all I had to figure out was, ‘Well, how could it happen?’ So that is one of my favorite stories of my whole life.”
The combination of a great song paired with a great love story on DAYS, Shane and Kimberly, was a recipe for instant success. “We had all those viewers, right?” notes Loring. “So if you have 10 million viewers and only one out of every 10 buys a record… Well, there you go. It was amazing. It was so great. To this day, I send gratitude and kudos to Beth Milstein.”
Conversation
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