“I’m excited that Catherine Zeta-Jones will be at my table,” Gloria Estefan said in her New York Marriott Marquis suite while preparing to be celebrated at an Actors Fund benefit salute in the same hotel.
Ms. Estefan said the actress once told her that she had “Cuts Both Ways” stuck in her car cassette player, and that she had listened to it for two years. “I said, ‘You must be sick of me,’” the Cuban-born singer said. “She said, ‘No, I’m a fan.’”
Ms. Zeta-Jones is not alone. Ms. Estefan, 58, has won seven Grammys and sold an estimated 100 million records, thanks to impossibly catchy tunes like “Conga” and “Anything for You” and a public persona that borders on saintly.
Last November, “On Your Feet!,” a spirited musical about Ms. Estefan’s rise to stardom, setbacks and marriage, opened on Broadway to lively reviews and business. (It would receive only one Tony nomination this week, for choreography.) On April 25, the Actors Fund, which aids those in the performing arts, honored six people, including Ms. Estefan and her husband, Emilio Estefan, whose group, Miami Sound Machine, she joined in 1977. She married him a year later.
Ms. Estefan has lost track of how many times she has seen “On Your Feet!” “I don’t even look at it and say, ‘Wow, that’s me,’” she said. “It’s a creative piece we’ve been lucky enough to be involved with.” The hard part, she added, was being honest about her mother’s overprotectiveness. “We were quite easy on her, to tell the truth,” Ms. Estefan said. “I’m old, and she still says, ‘Call me when you get home.’”
She is certainly capable of fending for herself. Reporters gathered in a side area to shoot and interview arrivals. Ms. Estefan, dressed in a black lace Dolce & Gabbana blouse, tirelessly worked the scene, despite having been up since 5:30 a.m. for a “Today” show appearance.
“Hola!” one of the photographers yelled. “Hello,” she answered back. Darius Brown, a young producer from “Extra,” asked for her thoughts on Prince’s death. “I couldn’t believe the innovation,” she said. “And he played every instrument.” Bennett Marcus of New York magazine wondered about the surge of interest in her native Cuba. “You know what’s funny?” she asked. “Obama is now more popular in Cuba than Castro. That’s great.”
The tall and slinky Ana Villafañe, who ably plays Ms. Estefan, arrived, and the real Ms. Estefan said: “It’s me. That’s my actual height.” Getting serious, she expressed tremendous respect for a Broadway talent like Ms. Villafañe, who does eight shows a week. “She’s a force to be reckoned with,” Ms. Estefan said.
Inside the Broadway Ballroom, the cocktail reception was crowded, but Ms. Estefan fielded all who approached. A 50-something attendee told her that “On Your Feet!” made her alternately dance and cry. “I’ll keep that in my heart,” the singer said, projecting a genuine decency. She probably would have made a good country star.
Sitting down to a steak dinner that she only half ate, she appeared rapt as percolating numbers from “On Your Feet!” were performed. A neighbor in Miami, Rosie O’Donnell, gave a wide-ranging speech, rapping the opening number to “Hamilton” and saying: “Gloria’s life is like a musical. You can’t keep her down.”
A video montage of career highlights included her winning the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 1993 and singing with Stevie Wonder at the 1999 Super Bowl halftime show. The Estefans took the podium to a standing ovation. “Man, you made me work a lot,” she said to her husband, smiling, after having watched the video. “The only reason we’ve been together for 40 years is she does all the talking,” Mr. Estefan said. “God bless America.”
Back at the table, Michael Douglas had arrived, but sans Ms. Zeta-Jones. (Maybe she was pulling the cassette out of the car.) Annette Bening showed up to give him his honor. When he accepted, Mr. Douglas congratulated the Estefans as “the original dynamic duo.”
During a break, Ms. Estefan sauntered over to an adjacent table to hug her hero, Cristina Saralegui, the Cuban-born talk show host known as “the Spanish Oprah.” “Gloria’s the one who told me to do the talk show,” Ms. Saralegui said. “She said: ‘Be fearless. You’ll be a millionaire.’ I owe it all to her.”
As she and her husband left — not via conga line, but by walking to the elevator — Ms. Estefan said, “We’re privileged to spend our lives making music.”
