It's not too late . . . ever

After 1972's "Morning After," the hit-maker became temp secretary Glenda Schwartz for a time. Now, instead of sinking, her career's going swimmingly. McGovern performs with the Philly Pops this weekend.

By Michael Klein
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

NEW YORK - Maureen McGovern is sitting in a fancy Asian restaurant on Broadway, vamping for a photographer, when a woman stands off to the side, a puzzled look on her face.

Isn't that Maureen McGovern, the disaster-movie theme-song queen from the 1970s? she asks.

Assured that she is, the question mark on the woman's face brightens into an exclamation point: "Wow, she looks great." She steps up to McGovern and says: " 'Morning After'! I love that song!"

You might excuse McGovern if she spat out a reply such as: That was 27 years ago! I've won Grammy nominations since then! I'm on the road or in the studio 80 percent of the year - and this is what you know me for?

Instead, McGovern gives the woman a radiant smile, clasps her hand and thanks her wholeheartedly.

The truth is, McGovern says, settling into a booth at the restaurant, "Morning After" is more than a song about hope.

It's the story of her life.

Sit back in a booth and hear how McGovern, coming to Philadelphia Sunday and Monday (and again March 19 and 20) to sing with Peter Nero and the Philly Pops, put her own personal disaster movie behind her and found happiness singing not just pop tunes but a broad repertoire of Broadway, classical and jazz.

"You couldn't pay me to go back into the '70s," says McGovern, who turned 50 last summer. She was discovered singing in a Ramada Inn outside Cleveland, signed by 20th Century Records, and given "Morning After" to record in 1972. Around the same time, McGovern visited Philadelphia to try out for a job as a backup singer on The Mike Douglas Show and didn't make the cut.

It was just as well. As she returned to Ohio, radio stations were asking for "that song" from The Poseidon Adventure. People thought she was on her way. In fact, she says, her life was falling apart.

"I recorded it while I was going through a divorce and learning my mother had colon cancer," she says. She followed up with a couple of other movie hits, including 1975's "We May Never Love Like This Again" from The Towering Inferno, and became seriously disillusioned with the business. She said she lacked control over her work.

"I come from a family that's not very assertive," she says. "My mother wanted me to be sweet. 'Be sweet, honey!' That's lethal advice in any of the arts. It took me a long time to stand my ground. If there's one thing I learned out of the '70s, it's that if something succeeds, there are plenty of people to take credit for it. But if it fails, it gets dumped in your lap, so it might as well be your choices."

Her choice in 1975 and 1976 was to drop out.

She became a temp secretary and took the nom de phone "Glenda Schwartz," as she was too embarrassed to answer to her real name. "I was flat broke. I couldn't get arrested here. I'd go out [to perform], go to South America, and come back - as Glenda Schwartz."

She decided to return and again landed hits with 1979's "Can You Read My Mind" from Superman, and "Different Worlds," the title song from the sitcom Angie (set in Philadelphia).

Around that time, she had another professional turning point. "I didn't want to be dependent on something lasting three minutes and 10 seconds," she says. "So I did as many things as I could: children's music, summer stock and cabaret. Cabaret performing is the antithesis of hits."

She moved to New York when Joseph Papp hired her to replace Linda Ronstadt in The Pirates of Penzance on Broadway in 1981.

Broadway, with no stage experience. But she held the role for 14 months, and segued neatly into Nine, with Raul Julia (1982). She returned to Broadway in 1989 with Sting in The 3 Penny Opera.

In between, for most of the 1980s and 1990s, McGovern has taken on a broad range of projects: singing (from symphony work to intimate club dates), TV and movie acting (she was in the Airplane! movies and did parts on Beyond Belief and The Tracey Ullman Show), and composing (her children's musical The Bengal Tiger's Ball premiered last year at the Civic Theater of Central Florida in Orlando). Last year, she and her musical director, Mike Renzi, won another Grammy nomination for The Pleasure of His Company, a collection of love songs. And last year, she also lost a dear friend, tour mate and mentor, Mel Tormé. "Every night I would stand in the wings with my jaw to the floor," she recalls. "Amazing, amazing. I was listening to our Rodgers and Hart medley just the other day. It was very sad. The best! He used to call us the 'Beauty and the Best.'"

Now she lives with her two dogs in a Beverly Hills condo, listens to Dori Caymmi, Chick Corea and Annie Lennox for enjoyment and to the car radio "to keep current," and enjoys the company of friends, most of whom are not in show business. Her LA base enables her to take more film work. She handles the voice of Rachel in an animated Joseph, due in theaters soon (Ben Affleck plays the title role).

"Turning 50 is only the second half of my life," she says. "I'm loving every minute of it." In the Philadelphia show, she will sing movie hits, including an a cappella "Over the Rainbow." "There's something that happens when I do the song that has - and I don't literally mean this in a religious sense - that has the power of prayer, that has the power of something spiritual, because it takes us out of where we are at the moment."

Yes, she also will do "Morning After." "Look, I know that I would not be here if not for it," she says. "A lot of people tell me that it is the ultimate hope song. I receive letters from people who put the song on loop tape and play it through their surgery or chemo or recovery because it's life-affirming. And I just know that that's one of the reasons I was put here, and I feel strongly about giving back."