I am happy to say that Gloria Castaneda, as she laughingly admits, loves to talk about her life, because quite a life it is! Step by step from way before her birth it has been dramatic, but as for her personal appearance on life’s stage, she was born in El Paso and raised for her first 6 years in Ciudad Juarez where her home was. She wanted to be an actress from as far back as she can remember- performed shows in her back yard as a child. The agent she met in high school wanted her to be rail thin to get parts, to which Gloria, far too sincere to mince words, counter-offered a total no thank you to that.
Her mother was not favorable to Gloria’s acting anyway and wanted her to be a teacher. Gloria agreed until her first job as a pre-school teacher, and then came the meltdown at her aunt’s house when she realized she pretty much detested teaching. Her aunt encouraged her to go her own way, and there you have just the start. Sometimes you do not want to make a long story short, you want to make a nice long personal-adventure movie out of it.
Gloria’s heart and soul, as a devoted Catholic, always resided in life’s most spiritual precinct, so she followed her dream to produce Catholic programs. Sound simple, that part? Turns out the desire was simple, but the actual road was rather bumpy. Gloria, not one to be diverted from a dream, braved the bumps through heavenly times and dicey to land right where she wanted in the first place. And, this is the shortened version of a most interesting in-progress life of a most interesting in-progress woman.
Listen to it all in her own sweet vibrant voice, able to laugh at herself and her challenges, and always ready to take the next step. She is, at present, Program Director and Casting Liaison at the Media Access Office.
Contagious laughter, contagious courage and always a cheerful, gratitude-filled intelligence. Her love letter? To her aunt who sacrificed a lot for family, the details of which make both the love letter and, hopefully, the movie for which Gloria has written the script.
