<P> Loring was born in New York City, the daughter of Dorothy Ann (née Tobin), a singer, and Gerald "Buzzy" Lewis Goff, a professional trumpet player with Tommy Dorsey Big Band as well as other renowned Swing groups; a salesman and hospitality / restaurant industry consultant </P> <P> Loring began her music career at age 14, singing with a folk group known as Those Four . Loring released her first album in 1968 . It was titled Gloria Loring, Today on MGM Records . Several singles, including cover versions of Harry Nilsson's "Everybody's Talkin"' and Roger Whittaker's "New World in the Morning" were released on the Evolution label, though none charted . She went on to perform on a wide range of television shows in the late 1960s and 1970s, from The Carol Burnett Show to the Academy Awards ceremony . Signed to Atco Records, she released the single "Brooklyn," produced by Mike Post, in 1977 under the alias Cody Jameson, and it became her first chart single, climbing to No. 74 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also appearing on the Adult Contemporary and Country Charts . </P> <P> In 1979 and 1980, Loring and then - husband Alan Thicke composed the theme songs to Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life . There were two versions of the Facts of Life theme song that Loring sang . One version was used from seasons two through six, and a second was used from seasons seven to nine . </P> <P> Her son Brennan was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 1979 . A year later, Loring joined Days of Our Lives and got the idea to create and self - publish the Days Of Our Lives Celebrity Cookbook to raise money for diabetes research . Volume One was published in 1981 and the follow - up Volume Two in 1983 . The cookbooks, along with her recording "A Shot in the Dark", raised more than $1 million for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation ("JDRF"). She followed that success with three commercially published books, Kids, Food and Diabetes, Parenting a Child with Diabetes, and Living with Type 2 Diabetes: Moving Past the Fear . For the past 30 years, she has served as a spokesperson for JDRF . JDRF is the official philanthropy of her college sorority, Alpha Gamma Delta . </P>

Who sang the facts of life theme song