Born Cynthia Frantz in Philadelphia, Gloria's family relocated to Atlanta, Boston and eventually Detroit. As a teenager, Gloria bailed out of an education at the Detroit Free School and headed west to California. She attended a small alternative high school in Berkeley which fostered a burgeoning local music scene. As the daughter of a Dutch-born civil rights activist father and thespian-inclined mother, it was perhaps inevitable that Cynthia would be drawn towards public performance.

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