Looking back, the world fell in love with Marcia Brady because of her adorable hollow eyes and her wholesome trembling hyperactive paranoia.
That’s the reason why everyone’s favourite episodes of The Brady Bunch is the one where Marcia Brady plumbs the squalid depths of addiction thanks to her years growing up in an abusive family, trading sex for drugs and being forced to deal with unwanted pregnancies. And that episode where Marcia Brady gets hammered on Quaaludes in Sammy Davis Jr‘s house? Oh Marcia Marcia Marcia.
Wait, they’re not episodes of The Brady Bunch at all – they’re excerpts from Maureen McCormick‘s new book, Here’s The Story: Surviving Marcia Brady And Finding My True Voice. You might think that Maureen McCormick has reached a new pitiful low by detailing her battles with depression and drug addiction in a book for cash, but you’re wrong – she’s nowhere near the pitiful low benchmark set by her participation in A Very Brady Christmas.
If we ever have children, the first thing we’re going to do is shove them into ill-fitting careers as childstars. Really, it’s the best thing for them. Admittedly they’ll grow up with a sort of low self-esteem Pavlovian conditioning that’ll equate attention with love, making them spiral off into the dark realms of joyless sex and drug addiction by their early teens. But they’ll thank us later when their careers dry up and they can get an easy second income by detailing what a shitty childhood they had in a series of books.
Honestly, everyone’s at it. Screech from Saved By The Bell has a book coming out, it can only be a matter of time before Gary Coleman releases a book called What’chu Talkin’ ‘Bout: Cries For Help From An Angry Midget and now Marcia Brady actress Maureen McCormick has had a go too.
Previously the two most exciting things to ever happen to anyone from The Brady Bunch were a) when Bobby lost control of his car in The Brady 500 and ended up paralysed from the waist down and b) when Florence Henderson lost her dog and got a bit sad about it.
But that’s nothing, because Maureen McCormick today publishes Here’s The Story: Surviving Marcia Brady And Finding My True Voice, her attempt to make all Brady Bunch fans so depressed and guilty by association that they end up losing all will to live. In the book, Maureen McCormick reveals fun little anecdotes about the time she developed a long-term addiction to cocaine and Quaaludes, the time she spent most of her adult life getting treated for depression, the times she debased herself by swapping sex for drugs and her hilarious unwanted pregnancy. E! Online has details:
“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.'”
Well that’s Christmas sorted, then. Everyone we know is getting a copy of Maureen McCormick’s book. That way, by Boxing Day teatime, everyone will be so inert and desolate that they won’t notice that we’ve eaten all the sausage rolls and have stolen their Xboxes. Result.
Let’s hope that Maureen McCormick’s book acts as a valuable warning to the new generation of tween stars rising up in America at the moment. The lesson it teaches is plain to see – make sure you do as many drugs and have as much meaningless sex as possible right now, otherwise you’ll never get that publishing deal in 30 years’ time.
toolahroolahroolah says
Marcia Brady trading sex for drugs… The DOM’s will be busy with their ky tonite
J Bollocks says
“The DOM’s will be busy with their ky tonite”
Yeah, I know, mine’s booked out for a month.
The Dread Pirate Sausage! says
“It’s My Upper Lip: Memoirs of a Child Star” by Dustin Diamond
Broke with no money says
Man what she could of done with all the money, fame and youth she had …
I feel sad for her , in a way
hope she don’t blow her new found book money
Manoffaith says
Come on guys. Quit taking cheap shots on the lady. I for one applaud her courage and honestly in discussing subjects that most of us would keep hidden.she is still a beautiful class act in my book.
man of faith says
Please quit taking cheap shots on Miss McCormick. She was and still is a beautiful class-act. I applaud her courage in writing about her personal demons. And I want to thank her for the memories from my own youth.
Lily-of-the-Valley says
I read Maureen McCormick’s book, and it was one of the most depressing bios I have ever read I actually threw it out. I was most taken aback not with her un-Marcia-like lifestyle, but with what comes across as a total lack of conscience–an amorality. I don’t recall anywhere reading that she had any sort of internal struggle when presented with choices to be made. She visits a neighbor’s house, she is invited to partake in drugs, and simply goes ahead. No inner turmoil, no possible revulsion; no consideration of possible consequences;she just does it. Same with her abortions. There is no sense that there is any weighing and balancing of alternatives. There is no anguish after the procedures are done (as I recall). There is not even a sense of relief. It is totally devoid of any internal struggle of any kind. The encounter she had with two women was another where she is presented with a situation she found attractive but in no way questioned as to its morality or not. She just goes with it. Oh, no. She actually doesn’t in the end, not because it might be morally questionable, but because she is worried about her image. Even the “born-again” experience doesn’t ring sincere because it sounds like she simply succumed to something that overwhelmed her, not that she experienced a true sense of goodness and really wanted to change her life for the better. There are many stars who I like but who don’t share my values, but at least I get a sense that they struggle and attempt to do what they feel is the right thing to do. Not so with this actress. I really liked and like the character of Marcia Brady, but the lack of a conscience makes MM look far more pathetic than simply a “dumb blonde”. I pray for her.