Gloria Rachel Bloom was born into a Jewish working-class family of Philadelphia on July 3, 1941. Her father, Morris, worked as a salesman; her British-born mother, Stella, was a housewife. After graduating from the Philadelphia High School for Girls, she attended the University of Pennsylvania, where she met her first husband, Peyton Huddleston Bray Jr. The couple had their only child, Lisa Bloom, on September 20, 1961, and divorced shortly after. Bloom is also an attorney and is best known as a former Court TV anchor.