Like I wrote about Carrie Fisher a few weeks before she died, given what I know about Maureen McCormick’s life, looks aside, I’m surprised she’s still alive.
A relative of mine by marriage has worked in the technical side of the “Industry” as it’s known in southern California. Both his parents are documentary filmmakers. He also attended Hollywood High School, rubbing elbows with the kids of celebrities, directors, producers, and so on. That means from his teens on he’s been one or two “handshakes” from anyone you care to name. For example, he has pictures of the several times he and a schoolmate visited Groucho Marx because that kid’s family was friendly with the old guy.
He had a wild time as a teenager in the 70s, not as wild as some, but wild enough. Naturally, he has wild stories along with the details and photographs to back most of them up.
McCormick was a notorious party girl and coke whore for the a big chunk of the 70s and into the 80s. If you had a party which involved that certain type of crowd, there was a good chance McCormick would show up on the arm of somebody and, if you had access to coke, there was a good chance she’d be sleeping on your couch for the next couple months until you passed her off to the next guy.
She sort of kept it together enough to do TV guest spots and the like until she was cast in something called Skatetown USA. While I’m sure you’ve all heard of disco, there was fad within that fad called “roller disco”. That’s right, disco dancing on roller skates. It didn’t last long, mercifully, but some D-list producer tried to get a movie out based on the idea before the whole disco fad imploded. The movie is notorious for two things; it was incredibly awful and the amount of cocaine used on the set.
Skatetown tipped McCormick into serious coke use, so serious that her ability to work quickly degraded. While she continued doing schlocky TV guest spots on crap like The Love Boat and Fantasy Island, her problems were raising eyebrows even among the filth that run Hollywood. The final straw occurred during what should have been a pro forma audition for a role in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The producers wanted her for a specific role, a role they had actually written for her. All she had to do was show up, behave somewhat coherently, and she’d have the job. Instead she showed up on the tail end of a lengthy coke binge and was basically black balled as unemployable for the next five years or so.
A sad story, but one entirely of her own making. For a decade or so after The Brady Bunch was canceled, if you lived in SoCal, ran with the right crowd, and had some coke, there’s a very good chance you went b~~~~ deep in Marcia Brady.
It’s a wonder she’s still alive.
Do not date. Do not impregnate. Do not co-habitate. Above all, do not marry. Reclaim and never again surrender your personal sovereignty.
blade 2 years, 6 months ago.
61 and all walled out!
