Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford
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Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford, nee Rovell, is an American singer. She was a member of groups The Honeys and Spring (aka American Spring) with her sister Diane Rovell. She was also the first wife of Beach Boy Brian Wilson, and is the mother of singers Carnie Wilson and Wendy Wilson of Wilson Phillips.
Marilyn and Brian met when she, sister Diane and cousin Ginger Blake (who was dating Brian's then collaborator Gary Usjer at the time) went to see the Beach Boys perform at Pandora's Box in Hollywood in October 1962. Talking during an interval between sets, Brian asked for a sip of Marilyn's hot chocolate. He nervously spilled the drink on her blouse a moment later, but the incident broke the ice between the two, and they began dating, despite their relative age difference (he was twenty and a professional musician; she was fourteen and still in high school).
Brian became the producer of the Honeys, a girl group Marilyn and Diane had with cousin Ginger Blake, and Marilyn was Brian Wilson's muse during the Beach Boys' peak days in the mid-1960s. They married on December 7, 1964, as the Honeys' career came and went with the surf-n-car craze. Marilyn stood by Brian during his descent into schizophrenia, after she gave birth to daughters Carnie and Wendy, and chased off the hangers-on, dopers and freeloaders that had become Brian's social centre, even padlocking the refrigerator to stop Brian from bingeing on desserts.
In the mid-1970s, Marilyn re-teamed with sister Diane to form Spring, and persuaded Brian to begin psychotherapy by pretending to go herself (and always coming back delightedly happy, in contrast to Brian's dark moods). He recovered to a point, but after members of his family (including members of the Beach Boys) insisted he cease therapy and return to making music full-time, Wilson's mental health worsened.
Marilyn and Brian divorced in 1979, amicably; Marilyn remembered to Rolling Stone magazine in the early 1990s that Brian's increasingly erratic behavior was affecting their two daughters, telling him "I love you, but the girls have got to have a normal home life," and telling them in turn how their father was "a genius", but also mentally ill. Brian was likewise supportive of Marilyn, and though estranged from the girls during his recovery, was finally able to connect with them as adults.
The Honeys reformed in the 1990s, and performed at occasional venues in southern California. Marilyn has appeared in numerous documentaries and other programs about the Beach Boys, Wilson Phillips, and the music of the 1960s and 1970s. She was portrayed in The Beach Boys: An American Family by Amy Van Horne, and in the earlier Summer Dreams: The Story of the Beach Boys by Wendy Kaplan.
She has since remarried and is now known as Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford. She now works as a real estate agent in Los Angeles, California.
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