She lost everything but wanted her dignity.
“You know, I’ve walked red carpets at movie openings all over the world. But…”
She stopped and looked away.
“I don’t have any underwear,” she whispered. “I’m sorry for saying that. That’s what happened to me.”
Gloria Sandoval woke up Sunday morning in a Red Cross cot at a shelter at the Pasadena Convention Center. The house she rented in Altadena had been incinerated days earlier, and Sandoval, 67, walked among people like her in slippers, a sweatshirt and baggy pants. Through the canyons, through the highlands, among the people battered by the storm of wind and fire. .
Gloria Sandoval shows photos of the fire destruction taken on her cell phone.
(John McCoy/For the Times)
“My mind was confused,” she said. “I’m confused. Sometimes I just can’t speak. I thought, ‘What am I doing here?’ I want to go home. My jewelry, my clothes, my photos, lots of photos. Everything disappeared. All I have are my pajamas and my little cat Chispita. ”
Sandoval, a longtime actor, stood outside and watched as his family registered for aid through the Federal Emergency Management Agency and hundreds of people lined up around the corner waiting for financial aid. Some requested business loans. Some asked for shoelaces and showers. Volunteers handed out sandwiches, burritos, instant oatmeal and oranges. The Allstate Insurance crew listened, and occasional flashes of anger erupted from among the crowd in the all-white streets that masked the dire situation. Tears flowed every time a mother wrapped her child in her arms or as her husband sifted through papers, hoping he knew the dates and numbers and all the arcane details that made up his life.
Many people are tired, overwhelmed, rebellious and scared, calling their relatives to hear when the fires will be extinguished and rebuilding, or rebuilding or creating new ones that are not so burdened by overdevelopment and dangerous natural plans. I was trying to decide where to move. .
“It’s hard to take,” said Jim Crowder, who stood near Sandoval while his fiancee filled out paperwork at a FEMA table. “My home is okay, but she lost her home. Many of my family and friends lost everything. Altadena is gone. A place that has been there for centuries. Gone. You can never go back to what you were.”
Sandoval’s life began to unravel around 2 p.m. Tuesday, when high winds arrived and the smoke was still far away. Night fell and the wind howled. The air smelled. The approaching orange glowed in the darkness. My cell phone alert started going off. She rushed to her car and saw fire approaching the street. She said she alerted her neighbors before driving away around 3 a.m. Wednesday. Her home was quickly engulfed.
“Look,” she said, scrolling through her phone and bringing up a video of flames crackling inside the building. “I’ll show you. Look how hard it’s blowing. It was scary. I tried to save the dog, but it died. Where should I go? What is my future? I don’t want to be with my daughters. You know what that’s like.” She smiled. “The first week was good, but by the second week you’re like, ‘Mom, are you still here?’ I like privacy.”
Sandoval’s daughter, Claudia, who works in marketing for a television and film studio, has started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to put Sandoval into a new home or apartment. She also helped her mother apply for FEMA disaster relief and worked with the SAG-AFTRA union to get Sandoval funding for space to store donated furniture that her mother might receive.
A view of burnt-out houses along West Manor Street in Altadena.
(Allen J. Scherben/Los Angeles Times)
“My mother was always independent,” Claudia said. “This has been hard for her. Sometimes she feels so hopeful, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, and then hours later she feels depressed and says, ‘I’ve lost everything. ” he says. My photos, my memories, my home. It will never be the same. ” Her friends and neighbors are in shelters. She likes it there. She feels a sense of community. I asked her to stay with me. But she wanted to be there with them. ”
When civil war broke out in 1979, Sandoval fled his native El Salvador. She said her uncle was Roman Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero, who a U.N.-founded truth commission determined a year later was assassinated by a death squad, while Ms. Sandoval settled in Massachusetts. He started out as an extra in films such as “Scarface” and later landed roles in “Chef” and “El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie.” She appeared in the television series “Mayans MC,” where she played a cafe owner, as well as “The Rookie” and “Arrested Development.”
“This is my job. You can see it on my IMDb page,” said Sandova, who has been married and divorced and has two children.
She later moved to Glendale and then Pasadena, where she said the bank foreclosed on her home in 2019 after she was sick for several months and missed mortgage payments. She said she found a small place in Altadena but didn’t know where to go next and nodded across the street to where her car was parked. “I’m very strong,” she said. “I’m a Catholic. I feel God is holding my hand. But I don’t want to see God behind me. He needs to be in front of me. My life has changed. It’s coming.”
Sandoval’s hair was falling out and flying around, so she brushed it out. Her red nail polish was faded and she didn’t wear as much makeup as some of the photos on her IMDb page. But she exudes an air of grace, talking to people, petting dogs, filming herself on her cell phone, as if she were playing a role that she didn’t want but was still thrust upon her. It was as if he had dared to try. She fought back tears, feeling overwhelmed and angry like many people stranded at the convention center.
“Look,” she said, scrolling through her phone again, pausing at the unbearable humiliation.
“It’s a cockroach,” she said. “He was on the sidewalk. I smashed him.”
She lowered her voice. Her mood changed.
Claudia Sandoval (left) walks with her mother, Gloria, at the Pasadena Convention Center on January 12, 2025.
(John McCoy/For the Times)
“I’m in severe depression right now,” she said. “I cried out to God, ‘Why did you leave me?’ I fled the war in El Salvador. I came here to make a life. It was hard. I am old, and I wanted to live the last days of my life in peace.”
The moment has passed.
“I wrote a book,” she says, smiling as she calls up the chapter on her phone. “The title is ‘From Hell to Freedom,’ but I might change it to ‘Hell to Hollywood’ or ‘Hell to Gloria.'”
This is the story of a girl who is forced to leave her home country for a new country, where she finds joy and sadness, and where she becomes her own.
Source link
