Maureen Denise McCormick (born August 5, 1956) is an American actress, singer and author, best known for her role as Marcia Brady on the ABC television sitcom The Brady Bunch (1969–1974). She reprised the role in several of its various spin-offs and films, including The Brady Kids, The Brady Bunch Hour, The Brady Brides and A Very Brady Christmas (1988).
In the 1980s and 1990s, McCormick ventured into film and stage acting, with supporting roles in the films The Idolmaker (1980), Texas Lightning (1981), and Return to Horror High (1987). On stage, she starred as Wendy Darling in a 1983 production of Peter Pan and as Betty Rizzo in a 1994 production of Grease. In the 2000s, McCormick was the first actress to portray Rebecca Hotchkiss on the television soap opera Passions, as well as appearing on various reality television series such as VH1's Celebrity Fit Club, CMT's Gone Country (which led to a short-lived spin-off series led by McCormick, Outsiders Inn) and the Australian version of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!.
In music, McCormick recorded four studio albums with the Brady Bunch cast and toured with them. Her only release as a solo artist to date is a country music album, When You Get a Little Lonely (1995). McCormick's personal life was troubled following her initial period of success on The Brady Bunch, struggling with substance abuse, an eating disorder, and depression, which impeded her career. In 2008, McCormick published an autobiography, Here's the Story, which debuted at number four on The New York Times bestseller list.
1956–1968: Early life and television roles
McCormick was born on August 5, 1956, in the Encino section of Los Angeles, California, to Irene (née Beckman) and Richard McCormick, a teacher. She has three older brothers: Michael, Dennis and Kevin. She is of Irish and German descent, and was raised in a Catholic family.
At age six, she won the Baby Miss San Fernando Valley beauty pageant. In 1964, she first appeared on national U.S. television, in Mattel commercials for Barbie and Chatty Cathy dolls. Through the later 1960s, McCormick appeared in two episodes of Bewitched—in a season-one dream of Darrin's as one of his witch children named Little Endora, and then in a season-two Halloween episode as Endora herself transformed into a little girl. She also played guest roles on I Dream of Jeannie, Honey West, The Farmer's Daughter, and My Three Sons. In 1970, she lent her voice to a redesigned Chatty Cathy doll. McCormick attended Taft High School in Woodland Hills.
McCormick played the eldest daughter, Marcia, who had five siblings in The Brady Bunch, an American television sitcom about a blended family that aired from late 1969 to early 1974 on ABC, on Friday nights. She had a perky and popular personality. After its cancellation, the series was later rebroadcast in syndication for decades, as children's programming, gathering long-lasting, cross-generational popularity that led to spinoffs and movies. McCormick had a sporadic romance with her Brady Bunch co-star Barry Williams during the original series' run.
McCormick also voiced Marcia in the first season of the ABC Saturday morning cartoon The Brady Kids from 1972 to 1973. She recorded four albums with the Brady Bunch cast and toured with them as well. In 1972, she released her first solo single with the songs "Truckin' Back to You" and "Teeny Weeny Bit (Too Long)". The following year, McCormick recorded an album with her Brady Bunch co-star Christopher Knight, a pop recording titled Chris Knight and Maureen McCormick, which carried both duets and solo tracks. McCormick's second solo single "Little Bird", backed with "Just a Singin' Alone", had mild chart success in the western United States (reaching the top five at KCPX in Salt Lake City). McCormick later performed "Little Bird" on American Bandstand, where host Dick Clark encouraged her to follow a singing career. McCormick released another single in 1973, "Love's in the Roses", backed with "Harmonize".
In 2015, archive footage of McCormick as Marcia was used for an American TV commercial advertising Snickers chocolate bars. The commercial, which debuted during Super Bowl XLIX, features action film star Danny Trejo as young Marcia who (in the context of being hungry) is not acting like herself. After eating a Snickers, Marcia appears as McCormick once again.
1975–2006: Other roles and personal struggles
Following the cancellation of The Brady Bunch, McCormick spent years addicted to cocaine and quaaludes, which impeded her career. McCormick later stated that she sometimes traded sex for drugs during her early 20s. She flubbed an audition with Steven Spielberg for a part in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), arriving for the audition under the influence of cocaine and having not slept for three days. She developed a reputation in Hollywood for being unreliable, to the point that one producer threatened that she would never work as an actress again. She also dealt with bouts of depression and bulimia.
Despite her struggles with addiction and depression, McCormick did appear in guest roles on numerous television series throughout the 1970s and 1980s, such as Happy Days, Donny & Marie, The Love Boat, Vega$, The Streets of San Francisco and Fantasy Island, along with supporting roles in The Idolmaker and B movies such as A Vacation in Hell (1979) and Skatetown, U.S.A. (1979). McCormick later claimed she failed to get a role as a prostitute or heroin dealer for the movie Midnight Express because she continued to be identified with her Brady Bunch role. She reprised her role as Marcia Brady on the short-lived series The Brady Bunch Hour from 1976 to 1977, and The Brady Brides in 1981, which was spun off from the movie The Brady Girls Get Married (1981). McCormick portrayed Wendy Darling in a touring stage production of Peter Pan, beginning in 1983.
McCormick married Michael Cummings on March 16, 1985. Shortly after getting married, McCormick went through a series of interventions, stints in rehabilitation, and experimental therapies. She was treated by psychologist Eugene Landy, and later claimed that his brand of psychopharmacology, for which he eventually lost his medical license, worsened her addictions because he prescribed her so many medications. She began to get sober after marrying, but she still suffered from depression and paranoia, and once threatened to jump from a balcony in front of her husband. She and her husband were at first wary of medication, but McCormick was treated with antidepressants such as Prozac beginning in the 1990s. McCormick also said that she was helped by her friendships with former Brady Bunch cast members.
She continued to appear sporadically in films and television projects, having a minor role as a police officer in Return to Horror High (1987), and again reprising her Marcia Brady role for the television film A Very Brady Christmas (1988). McCormick gave birth to a daughter in May 1989. When The Bradys, a revival of The Brady Bunch, was scheduled to begin production in 1990, McCormick was unavailable to return as Marcia because she was busy caring for her infant daughter, so Leah Ayres filled the role, instead. In 1993, she played herself in the Herman's Head episode "When Hermy Met Maureen McCormick". In 1994, McCormick made her Broadway debut as Betty Rizzo in a production of Grease.
McCormick released her debut studio album, When You Get a Little Lonely, on April 4, 1995, as an audio CD and cassette. The album was later made available as a digital download. The album was released under Phantom Hill Records, a record label owned by her brother. McCormick promoted it with live performances in Palmdale, California, and CD signings. When You Get a Little Lonely received negative reviews from music critics, though McCormick's vocals did receive some praise. In a retrospective interview with Entertainment Weekly, McCormick said that she was disappointed by the recording process for the album, and would have preferred to write at least one of her own songs.