For Singer and Actress Maureen McGovern We Are All Heroes

by Dale Reynolds

chanteuse & actress Maureen McGovern is a beautiful woman; but you knew that from the myriad pictures over the years. What comes as a quiet surprise is how soulful and playful she is. McGovern has been a recording star for twenty-five years now, ever since she recorded the Oscar-winning ballad, "The Morning After," (from the disaster flick The Poseidon Adventure). She recently moved from The Big Apple to The Big Orange in order to pursue more television and film acting, now that she has mastered and conquered the recording and performing end of music. With twenty full or partial albums and fifteen singles to her credit, she can easily afford to explore other areas, although apparently there is very little in showbiz she either cannot do or is unwilling to try. Hence the move to Los Angeles: "I love New York–I lived there for seventeen years–but with a new team of managers, agents and public relations people, it struck me that I had more on the West Coast than I did in the East, so it was time to uproot and move–and besides, my puppies prefer it out here."

This quiet and gentle soul makes an interesting admission about her life: "I think the arts are a self-centered line of work to have gone into. But for me, singing is almost a spiritual thing, although not in the religious sense. I think the voice can have a healing quality, especially when it's used acappela. Judy Collins has such a pure voice, all crystal and clear, and when she sings acappela, there's no sound purer. So I've started singing without accompaniment when I'm visiting hospital shut-ins. I love to see the light in their eyes–it's so uplifting to me." The above came out in the interview because of a reluctant acknowledgment that she is a natural giver; in her work, in her life and in her art. For the past two decades, she has been a volunteer fund-raiser for many causes, including the fight against HIV/AIDS, but more specifically for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, for which she sings on the Jerry Lewis telethon every year. She's also a vice-president of the MDA and the national chairperson of the Dermatomyocytis/Polymyocytis Division of MDA. "Through the years, I've watched people who are critically ill and have seen how they get to some point of pain and make the choice to either be caged by it or to propel themselves past the pain–I believe that elevates the spirit rather than caging it. As a performer you want to be used in some fashion, why not? I feel obliged in some manner to give and although every charity is noble and worthy of time and money, I found myself in the early eighties entirely too scattered in my giving, and I had to focus and given where I could be most effective." She became involved with MDA because of families she had met, along with watching Lewis and the others give that 100 percent they are compelled to give every year, what she labels "commitments from the heart. When you work around families with critical illnesses, what amazed me the most is the humor mixed with the hope. Hope is the most important thing you can give others, I think." Another more personal reason was that her niece, now ten, was diagnosed with MDA eight years ago. "She's doing well at present although there is no cure for her disease; she has responded well to the treatment and is in her second remission."

Her volunteerism actually started when she saw how people were using her famous song, "The Morning After," as an inspirational tool. "The song really is a hopeful one. Twenty-five years on, people write to me how they continue to use the song to sustain their faith. Also, some have written that they find something life affirming about my voice, especially with that particular song. When you work with families in crisis, you find that either the family unit falls apart [under the stress] or they're bonded closer than ever- or even an odd combination of the two. I learned that watching [gay, HIV+] comic Steve Moore and how valuable a service he provides with his humor."

By her own definition a "recovering Catholic," McGovern was born in 1949 in Youngstown, Ohio, then a small thriving steel town, and now just a faded memory. "I'm always so sad when I go

back home; the town itself doesn't have much left to its downtown section, although the suburbs are thriving; still all my old haunts are gone." Today she lives a polar existence from her youth in a fancy condominium near Beverly Hills, with her two Yorkshire Terriers, Nicodemus "Bebop" Dickens and Rockwell "Doowop" St. Armande (called Mr. Nick and The Rocket, thank God).

Oddly enough, both dogs were "inducted" into the traveling "Purina Pets for People Paw Print Wall of Fame" at the historic Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood last year. And, yes, Mama McGovern left her paw-print alongside them. "It's a traveling show, sponsored by Purina Corporation, which raises money to provide dogs for the elderly, the sick and shut-ins, including people with AIDS."

McGovern, while successful financially, is (more importantly for her) highly respected by her peers. Her talents, in addition to her many recordings, also include starring in several Broadway shows, (she replaced-and surpassed Linda Ronstadt as Mabel in the wonderfully goofus production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance in 1981; she also co-starred as the late Raul Julia's wife in the musical, Nine; and opposite Sting in the John Dexter production of the Weill and Brecht musical, Three Penny Opera. She's also starred in some of the classic female roles in American musical theater: as a sprightly Maria in The Sound of Music,Guys & Dolls (as both Sarah and Adelaide in different productions), as Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and in the two-hander, I Do, I Do. She has won international gold records from the U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan and the Philippines, as well as a Grammy nomination. Seemingly, there is little vocally she cannot handle, as her recorded work with Placido Domingo, has proved, along with the excellence demanded the classic Bernstein/Wilbur "Glitter & Be Gay" from Candide as well as a vocalise of Fauré's Pavane (with the Philharmina Virtuosi of New York at SUNY/Purchase). Critics go bananas when she performs, with the controversial former critic of the New York Times, Frank Rich, exclaiming in print, "Maureen McGovern is a winning comedian. . .a real find for musical theatre," and rival critic Clive Barns rhapsodizing about her work singing Gershwin at Carnegie Hall, when he said "the stylish Maureen McGovern can sing Gershwin like Joan Sutherland can sing Donizetti." Just recently she was surprised and thrilled to read Stephen Holden, the theatre/music critic of the New York Times who has been highly critical of her in the past, when he raved about her newest album. And Ms. McGovern is also not above appearing with Garrison Keillor on his charming and homespun, "American Radio Company." Whew!

Her latest CD, the one Mr. Holden raved about, is The Music Never Ends: The Lyrics of Alan and Marilyn Bergman, which is already her best album seller to date. If the chanteuse has learned nothing else by this time, it's most definitely how to interpret a lyric and, thusly, to sell the song. Her vocal caressing, her incredible range, her instinctual knowledge of just what a lyric means (after years of hard-doing), are the ways she makes the album so alive and so listenable. "The Bergmans are the carriers of the torch from the Great American Songbook through to the end of this century and on into the next. They write contemporary songs with a classic lyric. In part, it's because they've been able to write with so many great composers–it was one of the reasons I decided to do the lyrics [for the new album]; they've worked with the greatest composers of the latter half of this century and they write with the most lyric and poetic craft." It would appear the album is being marketed for those who yearn for great lyric and melody combinations. "This is the most romantic and lush album I've done. We spent a lot of time and effort. For instance, [Brazilian composer] Dori Caymii [in Like a Lover] was only eighteen when he wrote that [almost thirty years ago] and we worked with him and his Brazilian rhythm section–I thought I'd died and gone to heaven."

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