Maureen Denise McCormick (born August 5, 1956) is an American actress. 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 has appeared in The Amanda Show as Moody's mom in the Moody's Point segment. 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 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.
Life and career
1956–1968: Early life and television roles
McCormick was born on August 5, 1956,[1] in the Encino section of Los Angeles, California, to Irene (née Beckman) and Richard McCormick, a teacher.[citation needed] She has three older brothers: Michael, Dennis and Kevin. She is of Irish and German descent, and was raised in a Catholic family.[2]
McCormick played the eldest daughter, Marcia, who had five siblings 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. She had a perky and popular personality. After its cancellation, the series was later rebroadcast in syndication for decades, as children's programming, gathering long-lasting, cross-generational popularity that led to spinoffs and movies. McCormick had a sporadic romance with her Brady Bunch co-star Barry Williams during the original series' run.
McCormick also voiced Marcia in first season of the ABC Saturday morning cartoon The Brady Kids from 1972 to 1973. She recorded four albums with the Brady Bunch cast and toured with them as well. 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 recording 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 (reaching Top 5 at KCPX in Salt Lake City). 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".
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) is not acting like herself. After eating a Snickers, Marcia appears as McCormick once again.[7][8]
1975–2006: Other roles and personal struggles
Following the cancellation of The Brady Bunch, McCormick spent years addicted to cocaine and quaaludes, which impeded her career. McCormick later stated that she sometimes traded sex for drugs during her early 20s. 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 developed a reputation in Hollywood for being unreliable, to the point that one producer threatened that she would never work as an actress again. She also dealt with bouts of depression and bulimia.[3][9]
McCormick married Michael Cummings on March 16, 1985.[12] Shortly after getting married, McCormick went through a series of interventions, stints in rehab, and experimental therapies. She was treated by psychologistEugene Landy, and later claimed that his brand of psychopharmacology, for which he eventually lost his medical license, worsened her addictions because he prescribed her so many medications.[13] She began to get sober after marrying, but she still suffered from depression and paranoia, and once threatened to jump from a balcony in front of her husband.[12] She and her husband were at first wary of medication, but McCormick was treated with antidepressant medication such as Prozac beginning in the 1990s. McCormick also said that she was helped by her friendships with former Brady Bunch cast members.[3][10]
She continued to appear sporadically in films and television projects, having a minor role as a police officer in Return to Horror High (1987), and again reprising her Marcia Brady role for the television film A Very Brady Christmas (1988). McCormick gave birth to her daughter, Natalie Michelle, on May 19, 1989. When The Bradys, a revival of The Brady Bunch, was scheduled to begin production in 1990, McCormick was unavailable to return as Marcia because she was busy caring for her infant daughter, so Leah Ayres filled the role instead. In 1993, she played herself in the Herman's Head episode "When Hermy Met Maureen McCormick". In 1994, McCormick made her Broadway debut as Betty Rizzo in a production of Grease.[14]
McCormick released her debut studio album, When You Get a Little Lonely, on April 4, 1995, as an audio CD and cassette.[15][16] The album was later made available as a digital download.[17] The album was released under Phantom Hill Records, a record label owned by her brother.[18][19] McCormick promoted it with live performances in Palmdale, California,[20] and CD signings.[21][22]When You Get a Little Lonely received negative reviews from music critics,[23][24][25] though McCormick's vocals did receive some praise.[23][26] In a retrospective 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.[27]
In 1997, she portrayed country singer Barbara Mandrell in the television biopic Get to the Heart: The Barbara Mandrell Story. In 2000, McCormick was the first actress to play Rebecca Crane on the soap operaPassions, but she was not put on contract. In 2003, McCormick appeared as herself on an episode of the sitcom Scrubs with references being made to her Marcia Brady character.
2007–present: Reality series and other work
McCormick in 2009
In April 2007, McCormick appeared on Dr. Phil to discuss a family dispute, accusing her brother Kevin of both elder abuse and alienating their father from his other children to gain control of his finances.[28] The same year, McCormick joined the cast of the fifth season of VH1's reality show Celebrity Fit Club, hoping to lose 30 pounds (14kg) 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 (15kg) and, in June of that year, was the individual winner of the series.
McCormick released her autobiography, Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice, on October 14, 2008. 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.
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.[31]
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.[32] McCormick and Chigvintsev were eliminated on the seventh week of competition and finished in 8th place.[33] She joined with the other surviving main cast members of The Brady Bunch in the 2019 television series A Very Brady Renovation on HGTV.[34]
In 2021, McCormick paired up with contractor/decorator Dan Vickery in HGTV's new series Frozen in Time, a home remodeling series.
The Brady Bunch is an American sitcom created by Sherwood Schwartz that aired from September 26, 1969, to March 8, 1974, on ABC. The series revolves around a large blended family of six children, with three boys and three girls. After its cancellation in 1974, the series debuted in syndication in September 1975. Though it was never a ratings hit or a critical success during its original run, the program has since become a popular syndicated staple, especially among children and teenage viewers.
Christine Joan Taylor Stiller is an American actress. She is known for playing Marcia Brady in The Brady Bunch Movie and A Very Brady Sequel, for her roles in The Craft, The Wedding Singer, Zoolander, and Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, and for her television roles in Hey Dude, Arrested Development, and Search Party.
The Bradys is an American comedy-drama television series that aired on CBS from February 9 to March 9, 1990. The series is a sequel and continuation of the original 1969–1974 sitcom The Brady Bunch, focusing on its main characters as adults, and was the second such continuation after the 1981 sitcom The Brady Brides.
A Very Brady Christmas is a 1988 American made-for-television Christmas comedy-drama film directed by Peter Baldwin and starring Robert Reed, Florence Henderson, Ann B. Davis, Barry Williams, Maureen McCormick, Christopher Knight, Eve Plumb, Mike Lookinland, and Jennifer Runyon. It reunited the original cast members of the eponymous television series with the exception of Susan Olsen. Ron Kuhlman and Jerry Houser both reprised their characters from the short-lived 1981 sitcom The Brady Brides.
Eve Aline Plumb is an American actress, singer and painter. She is best known for portraying the middle daughter Jan Brady on the ABC sitcom The Brady Bunch.
Susan Marie Olsen is an American actress and former radio host. Olsen is known for her role as Cindy Brady, the youngest Brady child in the sitcom The Brady Bunch for the full run of the show, from 1969 to 1974.
Barry William Blenkhorn, better known by his stage name Barry Williams, is an American actor. He is known for his role as the eldest of the Brady sons, Greg Brady, on the ABC television series The Brady Bunch (1969–1974), a role he reprised in several sequels and spin-offs including the animated series The Brady Kids (1972-1973), the variety series The Brady Bunch Hour (1976-1977) and the television films The Brady Girls Get Married (1981) and A Very Brady Christmas (1988) and the reality television series A Very Brady Renovation (2019).
Florence Agnes Henderson was an American actress. With a career spanning six decades, she is best known for her starring role as Carol Brady on the ABC sitcom The Brady Bunch. Henderson also appeared in film, as well as on stage, and hosted several long-running cooking and variety shows over the years. She appeared as a guest on many scripted and unscripted television programs and as a panelist on numerous game shows. She was a contestant on Dancing with the Stars in 2010.
Christopher Anton Knight is an American actor and businessman. He is best known for playing Peter Brady in the 1970s series The Brady Bunch. He has since gone on to become a businessman and enjoyed a semi-resurgence in the public eye with television appearances in the 2000s.
Michael Paul Lookinland is an American actor and cameraman. He is best known for his role as the youngest brother, Bobby Brady, on the ABC sitcom The Brady Bunch from 1969 to 1974, and all of its sequels and spinoffs.
The Brady Bunch Hour is an American variety show featuring skits and songs produced by Sid & Marty Krofft Productions in association with Paramount Television. It ran on ABC from November 28, 1976, to May 25, 1977.
Chad Morgan is an American actress best known for her voice-over work on Adult Swim's Robot Chicken series, where she performs the voices of celebrities.
When You Get a Little Lonely is the debut studio album by American actress and singer Maureen McCormick. It was released on April 4, 1995, through the label Phantom Hill. After playing Marcia Brady in the sitcom The Brady Bunch, she was offered a solo record deal in the mid-1970s but rejected the offer to attend school. McCormick had previously recorded four albums as part of The Brady Bunch and a duet album with her co-star Christopher Knight. In 1994, she signed with her brother's record label, Phantom Hill, and recorded When You Get a Little Lonely in Nashville, Tennessee and Hollywood, California. Barry Coffing was the executive producer and arranged and produced all the songs. McCormick wanted to fuse genres into the album's overall country sound.
Gone Country is an American celebrity reality television show in which contestants compete to become a country music singer. The winner gets a country single produced by host John Rich, one-half of the country duo Big & Rich. It aired on CMT, with reruns on TV Land, and VH1. On the first-season finale, Julio Iglesias Jr. was named the winner.
Gone Country uproots these seven musical celebrities and moves them into a Nashville mansion together to embark on a two-week adventure, hosted by singer-songwriter John Rich. Each celebrity will be paired up with some of Nashville's finest songwriters in an attempt to prepare them for a career in country music. In each episode, the cast competes against each other in challenges that will test them musically and physically to adapt to a country music lifestyle, both on and off the stage. At the end of the two weeks, the artist who is most prepared to impress a country audience, as determined by Rich, will record and release a song.
"Time to Change" is a 1972 bubblegum pop song from the television sitcom The Brady Bunch performed by The Brady Bunch Kids. The song and another Brady Bunch Kids song, "We Can Make the World a Whole Lot Brighter", were featured in The Brady Bunch episode "Dough Re Mi" which aired on January 14, 1972.
Love to Love You Bradys: The Bizarre Story of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour is a 2009 coffee table book written by The Brady Bunch actress Susan Olsen with co-authors Ted Nichelson and Lisa Sutton, about the 1976–77 spin-off TV variety show The Brady Bunch Hour. The book's release also coincided with the 40th anniversary of the debut of The Brady Bunch.
A Very Brady Renovation is an American reality television miniseries airing on HGTV. It showcases the renovation of the Studio City, California house that was used for many of the exterior shots in the 1969–1974 American sitcom The Brady Bunch. The house was purchased by HGTV in 2018 for $3.5 million. The renovation was completed in May 2019 and the miniseries premiered on September 9, with the surviving Brady Bunch cast appearing in the program.
Get to the Heart: The Barbara Mandrell Story is a 1997 biographical television film directed by Jerry London from a teleplay by Linda Bergman, based on American country music singer Barbara Mandrell's 1990 autobiography Get to the Heart: My Story. The film chronicles the life and career of Mandrell, from her early years in her family's band to her rise to country music fame, and the 1984 car accident that nearly ended her career. It stars Maureen McCormick in the title role, along with Dwight Schultz, Greg Kean, and Lisa Blount in supporting roles.
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