Maureen Therese McGovern
(born July 27, 1949) is an American
singer and Broadway
actress, well-known for her premier rendition of the
song, "We May Never Love Like This Again" for the movie The Towering Inferno
(1974).
Biography
Early life
McGovern
was born in Youngstown,
Ohio
, the daughter of James Terrence McGovern and Mary
Rita (née Welsh)..
She has
Irish ancestry. As a child,
McGovern would listen to her father's singing 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. Her influences include
Barbra Streisand and
Dionne Warwick.
Breakthrough recording
After graduating from
Boardman 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 demonstration 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 resulted in her contracting
with
20th Century Records.
After it won an
Oscar for Best
Original Song, "The Morning After" scored well on the popular music
charts, reaching #1 during 1973.
During 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 hit), and the latter received an Oscar
nomination. These two songs (along with "The Morning After")
resulted in media people referring to McGovern "the Disaster Theme
Queen."
Challenges
McGovern's contract with 20th Century ended during 1976. Her career
declined and so did her finances. In an interview on
BBC
Woman's Hour 18 May 2009, McGovern stated that exorbitant fees
charged by her manager (40%) together with her band being on a
full-time salary, whether she was performing or not, was the cause
of her perilous financial state.
Ready to begin her life over again, she
moved to Marina del
Rey
and took a secretarial job under an assumed name,
Glenda Schwartz. Nevertheless, she was still in demand
occasionally for international live concerts. Her career improved
when McGovern 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. The single achieved minor success on the Popular charts.
Toward the end of the decade, McGovern recorded "Different Worlds",
the theme from a short-lived TV sitcom entitled
Angie. The song, her only other Top
40 single aside from "The Morning After", scored #18 on the Popular
charts during 1979 and scored two weeks at #1 on the Adult
Contemporary chart. During 1980, McGovern made a brief appearance
as Sister Angelina, the singing nun, in the comedy-disaster movie
Airplane!.
Broadway career
At the
beginning of the 1980s, McGovern gave up movie themes to begin a
career on Broadway, despite not
having any acting experience. During 1981, she made
her Broadway debut as
Mabel in a revival of Gilbert
& Sullivan's musical The Pirates of Penzance, taking
over for fellow 1970's popular singer Linda Ronstadt. 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 1980s and originated the role of Mary in the
Off-Broadway production of
Brownstone in 1985. She also was in Little
Women The Musical as
Marmee.
Carnegie Hall performance
She slowly returned to music during the mid-1980s, 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 nightclub and cabaret
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).
In 1989,
she performed her first 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).
Recent career
From the 1990s 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 nominated twice 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 re-released by Fynsworth Alley Records; both albums
included bonus tracks, the former two, and the latter three.
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. With
negative reviews, it ended quickly, but McGovern reprised her role
for the successful subsequent national tour.
She continues to appear in concert as a headliner and as a guest
with symphony orchestras around the country. Her new CD "A Long and
Winding Road," on the
PS Classics label,
salutes singer/songwriters of the 1960s like
Paul Simon,
Joni
Mitchell,
Lennon &
McCartney and
Randy Newman. She
performed a concert act based on this material at the Metropolitan
Room in New York City, the Rrazz Room in San Francisco and will
tour with it throughout the next few years.
She also continues her work with the
Muscular Dystrophy
Association, where she appears annually on the
Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon.
Other
McGovern voiced Rachel in a film called
Joseph: King of Dreams.
Discography
Standard albums
Live albums
Compilations
SinglesSingles
|
| Year |
Single |
Chart positions |
Album |
| U.S. |
AC |
UK |
| 1973 |
"The Morning
After"
(Oscar-winning; recorded in 1972) |
1 |
6 |
- |
The Morning After |
| "I Won't
Last a Day Without You" |
89 |
14 |
- |
| 1974 |
"Nice to Be
Around"
(Oscar-nominated) |
101 |
28 |
- |
Nice to Be Around |
| "Give Me a Reason to Be Gone" |
71 |
12 |
- |
"We May Never Love Like This Again"
(Oscar-winning) |
83 |
20 |
- |
Academy Award Performance |
| 1975 |
"Even Better Than I Know Myself" |
- |
- |
- |
20th Century Masters - The
Millennium Collection: The Best of Maureen McGovern |
| "Love Songs Are Getting Harder to Sing" |
- |
24 |
- |
| 1976 |
"The
Continental"
(Oscar-winning) |
- |
- |
16 |
Academy Award Performance |
| 1979 |
"Can You Read My Mind" |
52 |
5 |
- |
Maureen McGovern |
| "Different Worlds" |
18 |
1 |
- |
| "Can't Take My Eyes off You" |
- |
27 |
- |
| 1980 |
"We Could Have It All" |
- |
16 |
- |
|
| 1981 |
"Halfway Home" |
- |
24 |
- |
References
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