Gumleaf
October 14th, 2008, 05:48 AM
14/10/2008 2:53:00 PM, CelebrityFIX Next
Brady Bunch alum Maureen McCormick has written a new memoir, detailing her battles with addiction, depression, her wild Playboy mansion parties, sexual adventures - and yep, trading sex for drugs.
In Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice, Maureen confesses there was a lot more to Marcia Brady than most people knew.
Just 14 years old when The Brady Bunch began, Maureen was thrust into the spotlight as a wholesome, sweet TV sibling, while secretly struggling with anxiety and insecurity, as the youngest child of a turbulent father who abused and cheated on her mother.
"As a teenager, I had no idea that few people are everything they present to the outside world," she says in the book.
"Yet there I was, hiding the reality of my life behind the unreal perfection of Marcia Brady. ... No one suspected the fear that gnawed at me even as I lent my voice to the chorus of Bradys singing, `It's a Sunshine Day.'"
Maureen's professional and personal life suffered due to the party-mad, drug-addled lifestyle she adopted in subesquent years, stuffing up auditions, a Spielberg interview for a part in Raiders of the Lost Ark and a date with Steve Martin due to constantly being high.
"I remember him being a very good kisser," she wrote about Steve. "But I was insecure and either high or spaced out (most likely both), and I didn't laugh at his jokes... I'm sure my inability to carry on a normal conversation or respond intelligently put him off. We never spoke again after that date.
"I've always regretted my behaviour because he impressed me as an extraordinary guy. I would've enjoyed a second date."
Now and then: Maureen in her Brady Bunch heyday, and looking fab at 52
She also details an innocent date with Michael Jackson ("I wondered if he might try to kiss me, but he didn't,") and her steamy relationship with Brady Bunch co-star Barry "Greg Brady" Williams.
"We couldn't hold back any longer," she wrote of a time when the show was filming in Hawaii.
"It was our first kiss, and it was long, passionate and deep. It was wonderful, too, though as we continued to kiss and press against each other so closely that we could feel each other's body heat, a part of me — a tiny part, admittedly — said to myself, `Oh my God! I'm kissing my brother. What am I doing?'"
In her book, Maureen confesses to cocaine binges, wild parties and an unwanted pregnancy - a lifestyle that wound down only after marrying Michael Cummings in 1985, with whom she has a daughter, Natalie.
Loved-up: Maureen and Michael have been married for 23 years
She is now happy and healthy after stints in rehab, therapy and winning TV's Celebrity Fit Club, and looks fabulous for 52 - and won't care a bit if you call her 'Marcia' by mistake.
"I'll always be struck by how much a part of people's lives Marcia is and always will be. But now I'm not bothered by the connection. It took most of my life, countless mistakes and decades of pain and suffering to reach this point of equanimity and acceptance," she writes.
http://celebrities.ninemsn.com.au/blog.aspx?blogentryid=229753&showcomments=true (article link for pics and stuff)
Brady Bunch alum Maureen McCormick has written a new memoir, detailing her battles with addiction, depression, her wild Playboy mansion parties, sexual adventures - and yep, trading sex for drugs.
In Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice, Maureen confesses there was a lot more to Marcia Brady than most people knew.
Just 14 years old when The Brady Bunch began, Maureen was thrust into the spotlight as a wholesome, sweet TV sibling, while secretly struggling with anxiety and insecurity, as the youngest child of a turbulent father who abused and cheated on her mother.
"As a teenager, I had no idea that few people are everything they present to the outside world," she says in the book.
"Yet there I was, hiding the reality of my life behind the unreal perfection of Marcia Brady. ... No one suspected the fear that gnawed at me even as I lent my voice to the chorus of Bradys singing, `It's a Sunshine Day.'"
Maureen's professional and personal life suffered due to the party-mad, drug-addled lifestyle she adopted in subesquent years, stuffing up auditions, a Spielberg interview for a part in Raiders of the Lost Ark and a date with Steve Martin due to constantly being high.
"I remember him being a very good kisser," she wrote about Steve. "But I was insecure and either high or spaced out (most likely both), and I didn't laugh at his jokes... I'm sure my inability to carry on a normal conversation or respond intelligently put him off. We never spoke again after that date.
"I've always regretted my behaviour because he impressed me as an extraordinary guy. I would've enjoyed a second date."
Now and then: Maureen in her Brady Bunch heyday, and looking fab at 52
She also details an innocent date with Michael Jackson ("I wondered if he might try to kiss me, but he didn't,") and her steamy relationship with Brady Bunch co-star Barry "Greg Brady" Williams.
"We couldn't hold back any longer," she wrote of a time when the show was filming in Hawaii.
"It was our first kiss, and it was long, passionate and deep. It was wonderful, too, though as we continued to kiss and press against each other so closely that we could feel each other's body heat, a part of me — a tiny part, admittedly — said to myself, `Oh my God! I'm kissing my brother. What am I doing?'"
In her book, Maureen confesses to cocaine binges, wild parties and an unwanted pregnancy - a lifestyle that wound down only after marrying Michael Cummings in 1985, with whom she has a daughter, Natalie.
Loved-up: Maureen and Michael have been married for 23 years
She is now happy and healthy after stints in rehab, therapy and winning TV's Celebrity Fit Club, and looks fabulous for 52 - and won't care a bit if you call her 'Marcia' by mistake.
"I'll always be struck by how much a part of people's lives Marcia is and always will be. But now I'm not bothered by the connection. It took most of my life, countless mistakes and decades of pain and suffering to reach this point of equanimity and acceptance," she writes.
http://celebrities.ninemsn.com.au/blog.aspx?blogentryid=229753&showcomments=true (article link for pics and stuff)