Sunday Diva/Three From The Hip: Maureen McGovern

Sunday Diva/Three From The Hip: 

Maureen McGovern

In my own personal big gay church there is a special wing dedicated to The Working Girls. These are ladies whom have had long careers spanning decades with great chart success. They've hosted shows, appeared on variety shows, championed causes and had their ups and downs. 

But they kept working.

Enter stage right: Maureen McGovern

Never say never with this diva. 

Blessed with a vocal range the envy of many, she started out working the lounges of Holiday Inns, where it was just a matter of time before someone recognized what a talent she was. 

Theme songs seemed to be her bread and butter - four Oscar-nominated yielding three winners! With one of them snagging the #1 spot on the Top 40.

Yes... things looked good for this sure winner.

So, how is it she faded from the limelight and became 'Glenda Schwartz'?

Well, that would have to do with finances. You see, giving your manager 40% of the take and keeping a band on full-salary whether you're touring or not? That gets expensive. So the lady had to exit stage left... but not for long.

Yet another theme song resurrected her career and even though it was ineligible for an Oscar, it still had a huge impact regarding the demand for her services. More theme songs followed and then...

Broadway! Yes, she answered the call and the curtain calls quickly followed.

Through it all? That voice remained. And remains in demand still today.

The gospel according to her?

Well, here are three from the hip, dropping from her lips.

The topic? Her-story.

"As a kid, all I wanted to be was a pop singer. I was extremely shy. People kept telling me you’ve got such a big voice, you have to go into theatre. But, I was very, very shy as a child and a slow reader. But, even in my early days of performing, I could sing in front of anybody, but then I would go quickly into the next song, and said as minimal amount of words as possible. I never entertained the idea of going into theatre, although my idols were Judy Garland, Streisand, along with Ella Fitzgerald, Mel Tormé, and Cleo Laine, and Judy Collins, and Joni Mitchell and Dusty Springfield. So, I had a wide cross-section of people that I greatly admired. But theatre was not something I was really interested in."

"I’d only been working professionally since June of 1972. I was performing in Cleveland. My then manager had me performing in all the Holiday Inns and Ramada Inns across the great mid-west here, doing endless Top 40. The diva with the lounge band. I grew up in northeastern Ohio, Youngstown, Ohio. My producer was from Cleveland. His barber had come to hear me at a Ramada Inn on the outskirts of Cleveland, and went to him and said you’ve got to hear this young woman. He took a tape of mine around which essentially was just our lounge set. All of the record companies turned me down except for Twentieth Century Records, and Russ Regan who was head of Twentieth Century Records at the time, heard something in my voice and literally signed me sight unseen. He said, ‘We’ll look for something', and The Morning After was the very first thing they sent me to record. I thought, being a totally unknown artist, that by all indications, this movie was going to be huge; The Poseidon Adventure. So, they had me record it."

"I was working in Canada at the time and flew into Cleveland. I had a cold and it took awhile to make it not sound like 'The Borning After'. Maybe I should get a cold every time I record a million-seller. That was in November 1972, and the song was released along with the movie in December 1972. The movie took off. It was huge, a blockbuster. The song did absolutely nothing, and the record co. dropped it. So then in the Spring of ’73, it was nominated for an Oscar and a lot of radio stations started playing the song, as one of the nominees. Then, when it subsequently won the Oscar, more stations started playing it, and there was this huge groundswell of phone requests from California to New York. It forced the record company to rerelease the song and by August of’73, it was a gold record."

"So it took a full nine months for that song to happen. Even in December of ’72 when it was first released, I auditioned for the Mike Douglas Show with that song and they turned me down. So then in August of’73, I went on his show. For years, he was a very sweet man, made a joke about it, my brilliant staff…"

"At the end of the 70’s, when my records in the States weren’t selling, and I was without a record co. I went back to being a secretary... out here in California, in the marina for a P.R. firm and a publishing company in the valley. My mother always said have something you can fall back on, and she was right. But, I decided I didn’t want to chase that three minute and ten second record and that there was more to me than that. It was even suggested to me in the late 70’s to change my name, because it was easier to launch a new artist than someone who was deemed a one-hit artist. So, I just decided I was going to record things that meant something to me, and I walked away from the recording business until I could do it on my own terms. I didn’t record a solo album until 1986. I started writing children’s music and working in theatre. I just started working in the charity work I wanted. In the 70’s it was the grind of trying to find a hit record, and there’s more to life than that."

The Morning After - Maureen McGovern

Theme from The Poseidon Adventure 

Different Worlds - Maureen McGovern

Theme from Angie

Can Read My Mind - Maureen McGovern

Theme from Superman

And one last parting shot...

"I’ve done three Broadway shows, and one off Broadway, and a lot of regional and some stock. I did Pirates of Penzance. I replaced Linda Ronstadt, in 1981. I loved that show. I had never even done a high school play. Just three weeks prior to being signed to do Pirates I was on my way to Pittsburgh to do one week of summer stock with The Sound of Music and Joe Papp had asked me to come to New York and audition, and they hired me on the spot. I was coming from California with enough clothes in my suitcase for two weeks, and went right after that to New York, and stayed for the next 17 years. I just recently moved back to California."

"When I went to New York and did Sound of Music, that one week of summer stock, I’d found a real home on Broadway. Opening on Broadway three weeks later was one of the most daunting things in my life. Theatre actually ground me as a performer, much more than the years and years of concerts that I’d done before that."