Here's The Story is an autobiography by Maureen McCormick. If you have to ask who that is, I'll just say Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!
From her fame in The Brady Bunch over 50 years ago, she will always be a part of pop culture, someone we grew up with.
Here's The Story: Surviving Marsha Brady and Finding My True Voice is the full title, and while she covers the Brady years enough to please fans, she also recalls the darker times that came afterwards where she rebounded from heavy drug use into being a born again Christian. Either way, it was hard to find work after portraying a TV sweetheart. There were various incarnations of the Brady's after the show ended, including a musical variety show (like Donny & Marie) and TV movies - but thankfully she avoided the odd and horrible reboot The Brady's in 1990 that hit the family hard with realism (like having Peter in a wheelchair).
Of interest to me was her performance in Skatetown, U.S.A., one of the two big roller disco movies of the summer: terrible and wonderful, featuring a roller-dancing Patrick Swayze. Filming that, like the Love Boat special to Puerto Vallarta, was a non-stop haze of coke and qualudes - as she says: "How messed up! How selfish!"
She got herself together and continues to work in films and TV today, but really she will always be Marsha. Must be a blessing and a curse.
There is a lot to like in this autobiography, it comes across as from a real place of looking back and understanding. She is open about her successful and failed relationships, family, and turning 50 in 2006 may have inspired reflection. This is most likely a book for fans, but if they are interested, they will be very happy to have read it, as I am.
2008 / Hardcover / 277 pages
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