She may be the most popular entertainer in this hemisphere and has been called the most positive role model in the music business. And when Gloria Estefan talks about the shattering bus crash that broke her back, her sincerity is such that even the usual healthy skepticism of the reporter is suspended.

"If you could somehow get this across," she said. "That I couldn’t have gotten through all this without good wishes and prayers... and it didn’t matter to whom the prayers were offered. Performing again never worried me. It was: Could I walk again? It was in my hands. I felt people’s prayers. Unconditional love is so important to get you through the pain and fear."

And it has. Her tour bus crashed in Pennsylvania six years ago. Now, on the day before the Olympics open in July, Gloria will be in Atlanta to begin her "Evolution" world tour. She’ll crisscross the U.S. from July 18 until September. Then it’s off to Europe. Central and South America follow in ’97. Pretty good for a performer who says of her injured back, "I have hardware in there, you know."

When Christopher Reeve was paralyzed in that riding fall, did Gloria feel his pain? "Yes," she said. "But for one millimeter, I’d have been in Christopher Reeve’s position. I’ve contacted him and his wife to ask what I could do."

Her new album ("Anglo-Afro-Cuban and Antillian music") will be out in June. An Olympic theme song called "Reach," composed by Gloria and Diane Warren, will be released as a single. "We wrote it in, about 15 minutes," she said. "And we kick off the tour in Atlanta obviously because of all the excitement." Her own favorite sport is volleyball (her father was a Pan Am Games star), and Gloria said she "loves to watch baseball, track and field, swimming and gymnastics."

Gloria is Cuban-born. "My dad was a policeman at the palace," she said. "He came home one day and said, ‘There’s a coup. We’re in trouble.’ " The "coup" was Fidel Castro’s overthrow of the Batista regime. "We flew out first class aboard Pan Am on round-trip tickets that cost $21. And never used the second half of the ticket. I still have it." Her father fought in the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion that tried early in JFK’s Presidency to topple Castro but succeeded only in getting people killed and himself jailed.

"He was two years in prison, them there was an exchange, and immediately he joined the U.S. Army, became an officer and eventually a major," she said. "I was an Army brat and grew up in places like San Antonio and Fort Jackson, S.C. I was in the first grade before I could speak English."

Gloria’s father is dead now. Her mother, a retired teacher, lives in Miami, as does Gloria with her husband, Emilio, and their two kids – a son, 15, and a daughter, 16 months old. She said the children "are nuts about each other."

And which comes first – her singing or her composing? "I write most of my songs," she said, "and that’s the most fulfilling part."

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A special THANK YOU to Amanda Warnock for giving me this magazine. You have always a special place in my heart!!!!!!!

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