Tuesday, October 14, 2008

A Very Brady Druggie? Maureen McCormick Spills

Growing up Brady wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Erstwhile Marcia Brady Maureen McCormick is telling all—and we mean all—about her formative years both on and off TV, revealing new details about her depression, drug addiction, unwanted pregnancy and what can only be described as an exhaustive history of suitors in her new memoir, Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice.

In addition to discussing an unusual string of relationships with Steve Martin, Michael Jackson and her TV bro Barry Williams, the actress and sometime country singer also reveals that she once traded sex for drugs and engaged in full-on binges at the Playboy Mansion and at the home of Sammy Davis Jr.

Marcia, Marcia, oh, Marcia.

"As a teenager, I had no idea that few people are everything they present to the outside world," McCormick, now 52, writes in the book, excerpts of which were released today. "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.' "

McCormick was 14 years old when the family sitcom began its four-year run in 1969 and apparently didn't have much personal experience to draw on for the character. In the book, due out tomorrow, the actress says she came to the feel-good show from an abusive family, with a father who abused and cheated on her mother.

When the show ended, McCormick says she turned to drugs, taking cocaine and Quaaludes among other illicit substances, a habit which failed to help her secure additional employment.

In the memoir, the actress also details a blown interview she had with Steven Spielberg, blaming the ill-fated meeting on her being high at the time.

What followed throughout the '80s was a battle with addiction and depression, including interventions and rehab stints galore along with various medications and therapies.

Despite her tumultuous road since then, McCormick seemingly has no regrets about her Brady gig and subsequent permanent place in pop culture.

"I'll always be struck by how much a part of people's lives Marcia is and always will be," she writes. "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."

[EOnline]



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