Maureen McGovern
The show-biz
life, on her
own terms
Maureen McGovern has taken
By Tim Ryan
charge of her singing career
Star-Bulletin"You have to believe in yourself, believe in what you want to do, then follow your heart no matter how painful that may be. Ultimately, it'll be the right decision."
Singer Maureen McGovern was the disaster-theme queen of the '70s: "The Morning After" from "Poseidon Adventure"; "We May Never Love Like This Again" from "The Towering Inferno." Then she decided she'd had enough.
"It wasn't that I didn't appreciate what I was doing," said McGovern, who performs a tribute to George Gershwin with the Honolulu Symphony tomorrow and Saturday. "It was that the music being offered me, that I was being forced to sing, wasn't what I wanted to spend the rest of my life singing."
A 1979 album of Top 20 hits was the last straw.
So did McGovern switch record companies, leave Hollywood or concentrate on acting? None of the above. McGovern, who is divorced, took on a new identity. Meet Gwelda Schwartz, secretary.
"My mother always said I had to have something to fall back on in case show business didn't work out," McGovern said, "I listened to her."
As her popularity declined, she was dropped by her record label and continued to reject the songs being offered her. She did have cameo roles in "The Towering Inferno" and in "Airplane!" and "Airplane II: The Sequel."
Although she was still popular internationally, McGovern took a job as a secretary for a public relations firm in southern California.
"I had to put food on the table and pay the rent," she said in a telephone interview from her Los Angeles home. "And it gave me a chance to reassess where I wanted to go and how I could get there."
But it was a double life. Owners of the firm were friends, but other workers didn't know who she was. And she was still performing in Europe and Asia, especially in the Philippines, so "I would occasionally have these long weekends so I could perform."
Today, Schwartz is gone and McGovern is back with recordings, concerts, the Broadway stage, television and radio.
She's on the road almost 300 days a year, performing with many of the nation's most prestigious symphonies, including the Boston Pops, New York Pops and the National Symphony.
McGovern has decided to chart a show business career her way. That means singing the songs she wants to sing, where she wants to sing them and trying the things she had always dreamed of, such as writing children's music and performing on stage.
McGovern has just finished touring with the Broadway company of "The King and I," as Anna, a role "I've been wanting to play all my life." She calls live theater "the most exciting thing I've ever done. Every night is electrifying. It's live and the response is spontaneous, immediate gratification."
She has starred in Joseph Papp's "The Pirates of Penzance," as Luisa Contini in the Tony Award-winning "Nine," and also starred in productions of "South Pacific," "The Sound of Music," "Guys & Dolls" and "I Do, I Do." Off-Broadway, she originated the role of Mary in "Brownstone."
Her 20 albums include last year's "The Music Never Ends: The Lyrics of Alan and Marilyn Bergman," which received rave reviews.
McGovern's latest release, "The Pleasure of His Company," features 12 songs written by Leonard Bernstein, Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter and Hoagy Carmichael. The CD is dedicated to Mel Torme.
"He's always been my idol and for most of my career, my mentor."
She was Torme's special guest at the Kool Jazz Festival and the centennial celebrations of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Oscar Hammerstein and Ira Gershwin.
She also performed on the Emmy Award-winning PBS special, "Celebrating Gershwin," marking the 50th anniversary of the composer's death, making her an ideal guest for the Honolulu Symphony's Gershwin concert.
"I've been very lucky," McGovern said. "But I would do it all again, stay true to myself and the music."
Maureen McGovern
Program: "Celebrating Gershwin's 100th, by George," with the Honolulu Symphony; Matt Catingub conducting
