Maureen McGovern

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Maureen McGovern
Former secretary Maureen McGovern quickly became the new "it" singer in 1973 with the Oscar-winning The Morning After.
Born	July 27, 1949 Youngstown, Ohio

Maureen Therese McGovern (born July 27, 1949 in Youngstown, Ohio) is an American singer and Broadway actress, widely known for her premiere rendition of the 1973 hit "The Morning After."

As a child, McGovern would listen to her father's barbershop quartet rehearse in their home. She was told by her elders that she began singing at the tender age of three, and would sometimes sing herself to sleep with things she heard on the radio. She decided at age eight that she wanted to be a professional singer; and she developed a taste for various types of music, including jazz, showtunes, oldies, and folk. Her influences include Barbra Streisand and Dionne Warwick.

[edit] Breakthrough recording

After graduating from high school in 1967, she worked as a secretary and performed part-time as a singer for a local folk band called Sweet Rain. Her singing caught the attention of Russ Regan (then head of 20th Century Records) in 1972 when he heard a demo she had recorded. At the time, Regan was searching for a singer to record "The Morning After" (the theme from The Poseidon Adventure) for release as a record. He hired McGovern sight unseen to record the song, which led to her signing with 20th Century Records. After it won an Oscar for Best Original Song, "The Morning After" quickly climbed the pop charts, reaching #1 in 1973.

In 1974, she recorded two movie themes: "We May Never Love Like This Again" (from the disaster film The Towering Inferno, in which she made a short appearance when she is seen singing the song as the evening's entertainment) and "Wherever Love Takes Me" (from the British disaster film Gold). The former won an Oscar (though it was only a minor pop song), and the latter received an Oscar nomination. These two songs (along with "The Morning After") led the media to call McGovern "the Disaster Theme Queen."

[edit] Challenges

McGovern's contract with 20th Century ended in 1976. By this time, her career went downhill and she ended up broke, due to being cheated out of her earnings by her managers and producers. To begin her life over again, she moved to Marina del Rey and took a secretarial job under an assumed name. However, she was still in demand occasionally for international live concerts. Her career made a turn for the better when she was asked to record a version of "Can You Read My Mind," the love theme from 1978's Superman, which was not recorded for the film. Toward the end of the decade, she recorded "Different Worlds," the theme from a short-lived TV sitcom entitled Angie. The song was her only other Top 40 single aside from "The Morning After," reaching #18 on the Pop charts in 1979 and also spending two weeks at #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. In 1980, she made a cameo appearance as the singing nun, Sister Angelina, in the comedy-disaster movie Airplane!.

[edit] Broadway career

At the beginning of the 1980s, McGovern gave up movie themes to begin a career on Broadway, despite having no acting experience. In 1981, she made her Broadway debut as Mabel in a revival of Gilbert & Sullivan's musical The Pirates of Penzance. She then performed in two productions with the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera: The Sound of Music (1981; as Maria) and South Pacific (1982; as Nellie Forbush). She continued her theatrical career throughout the eighties and originated the role of Mary in the Off-Broadway production of Brownstone in 1985.

In 2005, McGovern returned to the Broadway stage as Marmee opposite Sutton Foster's Jo in the musical adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. Plagued by negative reviews, it quickly closed, but McGovern reprised her role for the successful subsequent national tour.

She slowly returned to music in the mid-eighties, contributing songs to musical soundtracks and recording for various-artist compilations. She also returned to touring and performing in concerts and began establishing herself as a classy, jazzy nightclub performer. Starting in 1987, she released three albums for CBS in three years - Another Woman in Love (a voice/piano album), State of the Heart (a fully orchestrated album), and Naughty Baby (a live album).

[edit] Carnegie Hall performance

In 1989, she performed her debut concert in Carnegie Hall, singing a collection of songs by George Gershwin. The concert was recorded live and released that year as an album entitled Naughty Baby; it features a very first recording of a lost Gershwin song "A Corner of Heaven With You" (written ca. 1917).

[edit] Recent career

From the nineties into the 21st century, McGovern continued her careers in musical theatre, performing in concerts, and recording albums, and she occasionally made guest appearances on television. Other recordings include Baby I'm Yours (1992), a collection of her favorite songs from 1955 to 1970, and Out of This World (1996), a collection of songs by Harold Arlen. She was twice nominated for a Grammy, for her albums The Music Never Ends (1997), a collection of songs by Alan & Marilyn Bergman, and The Pleasure of His Company (1998), another voice/piano album.

In 2003, Out of This World and The Music Never Ends were rereleased by Fynsworth Alley Records; both albums included bonus tracks, the former two, and the latter three.

[edit] "The Morning After" in Pop Culture

• In the South Park episode "The Succubus" (#303), a succubus uses "The Morning After" to control Chef, and force him into marriage. The boys have to sing the song backwards in order to banish the succubus.
• The Simpsons episode "The Wettest Stories Ever Told" featured a parody of The Poseidon Adventure. Just before the ship (called the Neptune) capsizes, Lisa sings a parody of "The Morning After", which gives not-so-subtle hints to the destruction of the ship and deaths of the passengers.

[edit] Discography

Standard albums

• 1973: The Morning After
• 1974: Nice to Be Around
• 1975: Academy Award Performance: And the Envelope, Please
• 1979: Maureen McGovern
• 1987: Another Woman in Love
• 1988: State of the Heart
• 1992: Baby I'm Yours
• 1996: Out of This World (reissued in 2003 with two bonus tracks)
• 1997: The Music Never Ends (reissued in 2003 with three bonus tracks)
• 1998: Christmas With Maureen McGovern
• 1998: The Pleasure of His Company

Live albums

• 1989: Naughty Baby

Compilations

• 1990: Greatest Hits
• 2005: 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Maureen McGovern

Singles

[edit] External links

• Official Maureen McGovern Web Site