Maureen McCormick

Maureen McCormick
McCormick in 2009
Born	Maureen Denise McCormick (1956-08-05) August 5, 1956 (age 62) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress, singer, author
Years active	1964–present
Spouse(s)	Michael Cummings (m. 1985–present)
Children	Natalie Cummings

Maureen Denise McCormick (born August 5, 1956) is an American actress, singer and author. She portrayed Marcia Brady on the ABC television sitcom The Brady Bunch, which ran from 1969 to 1974 and reprised the role in several of the numerous Brady Bunch spin-offs and films, including The Brady Kids, The Brady Bunch Hour, The Brady Brides and A Very Brady Christmas (1988). McCormick also appeared in The Idolmaker (1980) as well as a wide range of other supporting film roles. In the 1980s and 1990s, she ventured into stage acting, appearing in a variety of different roles and productions such as Wendy Darling in Peter Pan and Betty Rizzo in Grease. McCormick also had a brief career as a recording artist, releasing four studio albums with the Brady Bunch cast as well as touring with them. Her only release as a solo artist to date is a country music album, When You Get a Little Lonely (1995).

Despite professional success on The Brady Bunch and its spin-offs, McCormick struggled largely in her personal life in the years following the original series' end. Addictions to cocaine and quaaludes, as well as bouts of depression and bulimia, all contributed to McCormick losing her reputation for reliability as an actress. Since the 2000s, she has appeared on several reality television series such as VH1's Celebrity Fit Club, CMT's Gone Country (which led to a short-lived spin-off series led by McCormick, Outsiders Inn) and the Australian version of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, as well as guest spots on a wide range of television series. In 2008, McCormick published an autobiography, Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice, which debuted at number four on The New York Times bestseller list and garnered significant publicity and mild controversy.

Early life and career[edit]

McCormick was born in Encino, California, to Irene (née Beckman) and William McCormick, a teacher.^[1] She has three older brothers: Michael, Dennis, and Kevin. According to her biography, McCormick attended Taft High School in Woodland Hills, California.

At age six, she won the Baby Miss San Fernando Valley beauty pageant.^[2] In 1964, she first appeared on national U.S. television, in Mattel commercials for Barbie and Chatty Cathy dolls. Through the later 1960s McCormick appeared in two episodes of Bewitched and played guest roles on I Dream of Jeannie, Honey West, The Farmer's Daughter, and My Three Sons. In 1970, she lent her voice to a redesigned Chatty Cathy doll.^[3]

Marcia Brady[edit]

McCormick's most famous role was as eldest daughter Marcia Brady on the classic 1970s sitcom The Brady Bunch.

McCormick played the beautiful eldest daughter, Marcia, who had five siblings. She had a perky and popular personality in The Brady Bunch, an American television sitcom about a blended family that aired from late 1969 to early 1974 on ABC, on Friday nights. After its cancellation, the series was later rebroadcast in syndication for decades, as children's programming, gathering a long-lasting, cross-generational popularity that led to spinoffs and movies. The Brady Brides aired briefly in 1981 as a miniseries that was spun off from the movie The Brady Girls Get Married (1981), placing McCormick in a shared lead role alongside Eve Plumb. However, when The Bradys aired in 1990 as a revival of the original series, McCormick had just given birth to a child and was unavailable to return as Marcia, so Leah Ayres filled the role instead.

In 2015, archive footage of McCormick as Marcia was used for an American TV commercial advertising Snickers chocolate bars. The commercial, which debuted during Super Bowl XLIX, features action film star Danny Trejo as young Marcia who (in the context of being hungry) isn't acting like herself. After eating a Snickers, Marcia appears as McCormick once again.^[4][5]

Later career[edit]

In 2008, she became a spokesperson for Children International.^[6]

Other acting roles[edit]

After The Brady Bunch, McCormick made guest appearances on many television series such as Happy Days, Donny & Marie, Love Boat, Vega$, Streets of San Francisco, and Fantasy Island, along with supporting roles in The Idolmaker and B movies such as A Vacation in Hell (1979), Skatetown, U.S.A. (1979) and Return to Horror High (1987). McCormick later claimed she failed to get a role as a prostitute or heroin dealer for the movie Midnight Express because she continued to be identified with her Brady Bunch role.^[7] McCormick was the first actress to play Rebecca Crane on the soap opera Passions, but she was not put on contract. She also performed in several musical stage productions during the 1980s and 1990s, portraying such characters as Wendy Darling in Peter Pan and Betty Rizzo in Grease.^[8] In 1997, she portrayed country singer Barbara Mandrell in the television biopic Get to the Heart: The Barbara Mandrell Story. In 2003 she appeared as herself on an episode of the sitcom Scrubs with references being made to her Marcia Brady character.

Reality TV[edit]

In 2007, McCormick joined the cast of the fifth season of VH1's reality show Celebrity Fit Club, hoping to lose 30 pounds she had gained since her mother died of cancer and needing to move her disabled brother into an assisted living facility. McCormick lost 34 pounds and, in June of that year, was the individual winner of the series. In 2008 she joined the cast of the CMT reality show Gone Country, where she competed for a recording contract. This led to a spin-off reality series called Outsiders Inn, in which she opened a bed and breakfast in Newport, Tennessee. In March 2009, McCormick appeared on Comedy Central's roast of Larry the Cable Guy.

In 2015, McCormick appeared in the Australian version of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, where she lasted 42 days and was the last evictee before the finale.^[9]

On August 30, 2016, McCormick was revealed as one of the celebrities who would compete on season 23 of Dancing with the Stars. She was partnered with professional dancer Artem Chigvintsev.^[10] McCormick and Chigvintsev were eliminated on the seventh week of competition and finished in 8th place.^[11]

Recording career[edit]

McCormick recorded four albums with the Brady Bunch cast, and toured with them. In 1972, she released her first solo single with the songs "Truckin' Back to You" and "Teeny Weeny Bit (Too Long)". The following year, McCormick recorded an album with her Brady Bunch co-star Christopher Knight, a pop extended play titled Chris Knight and Maureen McCormick, which carried both duets and solo tracks. McCormick's second solo single "Little Bird", backed with "Just a Singin' Alone", had mild chart success in the western United States. McCormick later performed "Little Bird" on American Bandstand, where host Dick Clark encouraged her to follow a singing career. McCormick released another single in 1973, "Love's in the Roses", backed with "Harmonize".

McCormick released her debut studio album, When You Get a Little Lonely, on April 4, 1995 as an audio CD and cassette.^[12][13] The album was later made available as a digital download.^[14] The album was released under Phantom Hill Records, a record label owned by her brother.^[15][16] McCormick had previously rejected a solo record deal offered in 1974 to go to college instead.^[15] She recorded it at Nightingale Studios in Nashville, Tennessee and Tempo Recording in Hollywood, California,^[17][18] and Barry Coffing arranged and produced all the tracks as the executive producer.^[12][19][20] Describing the album as "country crossover", she intended to combine various genres, including blues and jazz, in the final product. During the recording of the album, she looked to American singers Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, and Mary Chapin Carpenter and the American band Eagles as influences.^[15] She wanted the album to distance herself from her "perpetual-teenager image" as Marcia Brady.^[21][22] McCormick promoted the album with live performances in Palmdale, California,^[23] and CD signings.^[24][25] When You Get a Little Lonely received negative reviews from music critics,^[18][26][27] though McCormick's vocals did receive some praise.^[18][21] In a 2018 interview with Entertainment Weekly, McCormick said that she was disappointed by the recording process for the album, and would have preferred to write at least one of her own songs.^[28] Record label Building rereleased When You Get A Little Lonely as an exclusive for the retail company Circuit City in 2008.^[13]

Autobiography[edit]

McCormick released her autobiography, Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice, on October 14, 2008, with wide and sometimes controversial publicity. It debuted at number four on The New York Times bestseller list, where it stayed for three weeks.^[29] The book was published by HarperCollins and was acquired by Director of Creative Development Lisa Sharkey. While promoting the book, McCormick was a guest on many news and talk shows such as Access Hollywood, The Howard Stern Show, Good Day L.A., and Paula's Party. The Today Show reportedly aired an interview with McCormick about the book rather than switch to a story about the 2008 recession.^[30] McCormick said that a film would likely be made about her autobiography.^[31]

Personal life[edit]

In her autobiography, McCormick wrote that her grandmother died from syphilis in a mental institution, infected by her husband, who caught it in Europe during World War I (and who committed suicide a week after his wife's death). McCormick's mother contracted syphilis in utero, and McCormick dealt with a lifelong but unfounded fear that she would also get the disease, and stated that her favorite scenes in The Brady Bunch were those that called for her to cry, since this allowed her to release feelings that she drew upon from those fears.^[32]

McCormick had a sporadic romance with her Brady Bunch co-star Barry Williams during the original series' run. Following the cancellation of The Brady Bunch, McCormick spent years addicted to cocaine and quaaludes, which harmed her career. McCormick later claimed that she sometimes traded sex for drugs, and also had two abortions during her early twenties. She flubbed an audition with Steven Spielberg for a part in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), arriving for the audition under the influence of cocaine and having not slept for three days. She lost her reputation for reliability as an actress in Hollywood, and one producer threatened that she would never work as an actress again. She also dealt with bouts of depression and bulimia.^[2][33]

McCormick married Michael Cummings on March 16, 1985, who had heard of The Brady Bunch but had never seen it at the time. They fell in love upon meeting in a church.^[34] McCormick and Cummings have one child, Natalie Michelle, born May 19, 1989. The family lives in Westlake Village, northwest of Los Angeles. After getting married, McCormick went through a series of interventions, stints in rehab, and experimental therapies. She says that treatment with psychologist Eugene Landy set her back. She began to get sober after marrying, but she still suffered from depression and paranoia. She once threatened to jump from a balcony in front of her husband.^[34] She and her husband were at first wary of medication, but McCormick has been treated with antidepressant medication such as Prozac since the 1990s. McCormick also said that she was helped by her friendships with former Brady Bunch cast members.^[2][7]

In April 2007, McCormick appeared on Dr. Phil to discuss a family dispute, accusing her brother of both elder abuse and alienating their father from his other children to gain control of his finances.^[35]

Biographical portrayals[edit]

Kaley Cuoco portrayed Maureen McCormick in Growing Up Brady (2000). McCormick's character Marcia Brady has been portrayed by Christine Taylor in The Brady Bunch Movie (1995) and its sequel A Very Brady Sequel.

Filmography[edit]

Film[edit]

Television[edit]

Awards and nominations[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• McCormick, Maureen (October 14, 2008). Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice. William Morrow. ISBN 978-0-06-149014-9.

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Maureen McCormick.

• The Official Maureen McCormick Web site/Fan Club
• Maureen McCormick on IMDb