Here's the Story LP: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice (11 page)

Sniff. Sniff.

At one point, Claudia and I got close to the movie’s cinematographer, Gary Graver, who regaled us with stories of his friendship with Orson Welles and even talked about all of us making a movie together. In its own way, the promise of working with the legendary figure was as intoxicating as the drugs that fueled such conversation. All of us would make a great film together!
Sniff. Sniff.

Then Claudia and Gary began having an affair. Since I liked him, too, I became jealous and terribly insecure, wondering why he hadn’t wanted to be with me. Everyone was desperate for a special connection that would make them feel desired, pretty, or talented, even if it was only for a night or two, and that applied to me, too.

Well, one night after I dropped a seductive hint, it turned out he did want to be with me, and for a brief time, the lucky guy shuttled between the two of us. Such was life on that movie set.
Sniff. Sniff.
After returning to Los Angeles, though, I went back with Tony. Claudia stayed with Gary until I introduced her to Bill. Then they had a fling, which changed the dynamic of our friendship.

That happened when everything was about coke, and that’s what everything was about at Bill’s. Friendships shifted and suffered. Jealousy popped up for no reason or because someone misinterpreted a comment when they were high. And we were high all the time there. We were one another’s friends, lovers, and torturers. I slept with Bill, too. I did it only a few times—and always for the same reason: I wanted coke.

The atmosphere at Wonderland Avenue was subject to the availability of cocaine and therefore we were all under the control of Bill to one degree or another. Relationships got even more tangled, and people cheated and stole from one another. Even with all the coke I got from Bill, I scooped up more and took it home with me. Bill’s associates once accused Andy of stealing several ounces. They held him at gun-point and threatened to kill him.

The scene essentially ended when Bill went to jail after getting busted with a van full of Thai sticks. That in itself was a fluke. He’d stopped in front of a liquor store on Sunset Boulevard. While he was inside, cops walked by, smelled the load of potent marijuana, and nailed him when he got back into the van. I also heard Bill’s main coke supplier ended up in prison on Rikers Island.

A
t various points, it could’ve been me in cuffs. I did an episode of
The Love Boat,
and I couldn’t have been happier when I found out it involved an actual cruise to Mexico. My manager, Doug, and his wife, Jill, also wrangled a trip. They partied as much as I did, if not more. After my Bill connection dried up, in fact, Jack bought coke for me.
The Love Boat
turned out to be a nonstop party as we traveled down the coast, somehow managing to also shoot a TV show.

On the day we docked in Puerto Vallarta, Robert Hegyes, who’d played Epstein on
Welcome Back, Kotter, Love Boat
regular Lauren Tewes, and I arranged to get off the boat and go to the beach. At the last minute, I changed my mind and decided to go into town with my manager’s wife to shop and drink margaritas.

It turned out to be a good move. While we were partying, Bobby and Lauren were busted for pot. As it turned out, it was a set-up by a crooked cop who planted dope on them, hoping to extort cash from the TV production.

The situation was fixed after only a brief delay in production. It was frightening. Later that night, while sitting up on the deck I said to my manager, “Oh my God, that could’ve been me.” In true Hollywood fashion he replied, “What do you mean
you
? It could’ve been me!”

It seemed like the close calls were getting closer. Sometime after that cruise Carin and I went on a binge with Andy and Clark. We booked a suite at the Century Plaza Hotel for the weekend, and then we obliterated ourselves with coke and quaaludes. At one point, Carin passed out in the bathtub. She appeared to OD. We were too scared to call an ambulance. Instead we yanked her out, stood her up, and kept her awake until she seemed to be out of danger.

It freaks me out to think of what might have happened if she’d died—or more to the point that she
could have
died because we were too worried about ourselves to call for proper medical attention.

How messed up!

How selfish!

Like most druggies, though, we never considered the danger until it stared us in the face.

And even then…

Part
Two

Vacation in Hell

I
t’s because you were Marcia Brady.”

My agent put the news bluntly. I had auditioned for the girlfriend’s role in the movie
Midnight Express,
the based-on-a-true story of Billy Hayes’s escape from a Turkish prison after getting caught trying to smuggle drugs out of the country. The first reading had gone well and they had called me back several times. Each time, my chances looked better and better. For any actress, it was a terrific part: multilayered, demanding, and transformative. For me, it was also an opportunity to redefine myself as an actress. But then the part went to actress Irene Miracle, who would receive a much-deserved Golden Globe nomination for her work.

I was crushed when I heard the news and even more depressed after learning the reason was that I was too closely identified with
The Brady Bunch
to take on such a heavy role. I was told the producers and director Alan Parker feared audiences wouldn’t accept Marcia Brady in a movie about drugs.

It was the first time I felt cursed by my
Brady Bunch
past. What was I going to do about her? Was Marcia going to haunt me for the rest of my life? Was she going to hold me back? All of a sudden I hated her. If only they had known the truth, I thought. If only they knew the real me.

I poured my heart out to Claudia. She was getting over a disappointment of her own after losing out to Shelley Hack as Kate Jackson’s replacement on the TV series
Charlie’s Angels.
Disillusioned and depressed from that setback, she would, over time, give up drugs and straighten herself out only to die tragically about a year later when a van plowed into her VW bug on Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

E
ager to work and prove myself, I was thrilled when I landed the movie
Take Down,
the story of a high-school English teacher with lofty academic airs who’s forced to coach the school’s wrestling team. The fine actor Edward Herrmann played the teacher whose high standards and snobbishness put him in conflict with a senior on the wrestling team, a misunderstood kid with a secret problem that could prevent him from graduating. Lorenzo Lamas filled that part, and I played his girlfriend.

It wasn’t
Midnight Express,
but it was a good part in a film that had truly moving and inspirational moments. I also hoped I might even get in some skiing when I learned we were shooting in Provo, Utah. That didn’t happen. Early on, Lorenzo and I were busted by the director/producer Keith Merrill as we tried to sneak off for a day on the slopes. He couldn’t risk us getting hurt.

Keith was a smart, passionate, interesting man who was a Mormon and gave all of us Mormon Bibles at the start of production. I ignored his efforts at converting us. I could have used some guidance, though. Coke was prevalent among the crew, and I quickly found out who was holding and vice versa. It’s scary to think back on. One night I had an affair with a lighting guy in a sauna. I wasn’t one for one-nighters, but he had coke and I wanted some.

It wasn’t long before I fell into a routine, staying up several nights in a row without sleep, then taking pills to bring me down enough that I could get a few hours’ sleep and go to work without looking like I’d just been dragged underneath a freight train. One morning, after spending a couple days and nights locked in my room, locked in the sauna, doing coke, drinking, taking downers, and whatnot, I called in sick. I couldn’t make it to the set.

Hearing I had the flu, Keith and one of the other producers had me taken to the hospital. There I was given a shot of something the doctor said would take away my nausea and whatever other symptoms I’d manifested or made up. It turned out I had an allergic reaction to the medication. Not immediately, though. I made it back to the set and started to shoot a scene with Lorenzo. We were seated next to each other in a car. There were cameras, lights, and crew everywhere.

All of a sudden my neck began to throb, then the inside of my throat swelled, and I couldn’t swallow. I began to gag—and panic. I felt like my neck was going to shut off the rest of my body. I was rushed back to the hospital, where I received an injection to counter the allergic reaction.

That episode scared the hell out of me. I’d thought I was going to die right there on the set. It should have opened my eyes to my drug problem. It didn’t. Back in Los Angeles, I made my account to friends as dramatic as possible, and it really was. I didn’t have to exaggerate. But the punch line was pure fantasy: I blamed the ER doctor for not being more careful.

A
fter the movie, I worked on an episode of
Lou Grant,
the newspaper drama starring Ed Asner. Some weeks were saner and more sober than others, and I’m glad that was one of them. I got to work opposite Nancy Marchand, the graceful veteran actress who portrayed the newspaper’s owner. In the episode, I played her niece, who she discovered couldn’t read.

It was a fully developed role, which is tough to do in a sixty-minute show, and I felt so good about myself—a strange experience—when afterward both Nancy and Ed complimented me on a terrific week. Ed topped it off with a bear hug. Those were really lovely, talented people, and I’m glad I was present for them. It could’ve easily been very different.

And so it was on my next project, the movie-of-the-week
Vacation in Hell
. It was the story of five tourists—four women and a man—who stray from a group holiday in a tropical paradise and get lost in a jungle where a killer begins hunting them. Director David Greene, whose credits included
Roots; Rich Man, Poor Man;
and
The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald,
gave the production a certain stature. Aside from me, the cast included Priscilla Barnes, Barbara Feldon, Andrea Marcovicci, and Michael Brandon.

This movie was filmed in Hawaii and was fun from day one when we shot the opening scene with the four of us, having gotten lost in the ocean, walking up on the beach and beginning our harrowing adventure. An even bigger real-life adventure brewed offscreen as the cast and crew figured out which ones of us were partiers, and suddenly it was as if a wildfire of sex and craziness swept through the production. That was my experience at least. From the first day, Michael Brandon and I began to flirt. Born in Brooklyn, he was ten years older than me, dark-haired, handsome, a little quirky, and a gifted actor. He was just my type.

He adored women. I noticed he flirted with every female in his line of vision, and they generally found his charm and humor irresistible. But I was the one on the set who eventually got him, and we had a hot and heavy affair throughout the movie. We were also high throughout the production. But
Vacation in Hell
was one of those productions where nearly everyone, unless they were older and obviously straight like Barbara and Priscilla, seemed to some degree to catch party fever.

One day we were shooting a scene on the beach and all of a sudden Andrea, a beautiful, sexy woman with a Broadway background, turned to me and said she missed her dog. My simple acknowledgment wasn’t enough for her. She carried on about it, explaining she wanted me to understand that she
really
missed her dog, and then she asked me if I would bark for her.

“Bark?”

“Yes, like a dog.”

I looked deep into her eyes to see if she was serious. She was. So I barked for Andrea, who petted my head, smiled, and thanked me for helping remind her of her beloved pooch. Much later I wondered whether that whole scene had been a subtle attempt to embarrass me in front of Michael, who also liked her and may have gone back and forth between us during the movie until he settled on me.

I lusted after him like no one in my life. It was a combination of the drugs and Hawaii, I’m sure, but it was hot and heavy and romantic. When we did scenes together, I imagined him naked, and inside I felt like I was on the verge of bursting out of my clothes. The passion was pretty amazing.

And so was the coke. I was doing it every night, all night, and soon that round-the-clock lifestyle took a toll on me. One morning I didn’t show up for work. I was dead to the world and stayed in bed through my alarm and past my call time. I was still in bed when I heard a knock on my door. I didn’t answer, figuring they would go away. A moment later, the phone rang. After an annoying number of rings, I picked it up and heard a stern voice say, “Maureen?”

It was Pat Finnegan, who along with her husband, Bill, was producing the movie. The two of them were serious, respected producers. Pat said she had knocked on my door and not gotten an answer. I apologized and said I didn’t feel well. She wanted to see me and said to let her into my room.

I was out of it as she pulled a chair up to my bed and stared at me. My skin was pale, my eyes were bloodshot, and I looked like crap.

“Maureen, we
need
you on the set today,” she said. “You’re in the scenes we’re doing.”

“I can’t,” I groaned. “I’ve got the flu.”

I described my symptoms for Pat. It was the same excuse I’d used on
Take Down.

“I really feel nauseous and like I’m going to throw up any minute,” I said.

Pat took a deep breath.

“We’ll get you something for that,” she said. “You’ll be fine. But you’ve got to come to work. We need you.”

I continued to come up with excuses for why I couldn’t make it. Finally, Pat sat forward and looked me sternly in the eyes.

“Look, Maureen, I know what you’re doing,” she said. “I wasn’t born yesterday. I’m not naive. But you need to come to work. This morning. We have to do this scene—and we are going to do this scene.”

There was no use arguing any further. Pat was the boss. I stayed in bed for a few more hours, waiting for my head to clear and trying to feel straight. I stalled for as long as possible, then went to the set and struggled through the scene and the rest of the movie.

Back in Los Angeles, I moved in with Michael. He shared a large house in Brentwood with a guy whose girlfriend was actress Debra Winger. The four of us spent a lot of time together at the house. Debra was fun, as well as brilliant, charismatic, opinionated, and intense. She gave off a powerful, going-places vibe. I wasn’t surprised when she became a superstar.

I
t was through Michael that I was introduced to the Playboy Mansion. He knew people there, and we were invited to parties. On one occasion, I saw Steven Spielberg with his than girlfriend, actress Amy Irving. Another time Michael pointed out legendary producer Robert Evans lounging poolside amid a bevy of topless bunnies. One night we met Sammy Davis Jr. After the party wound down at the mansion, we followed him up to his house off Benedict Canyon.

A number of other people also made the late-night trip to his place from the mansion. I couldn’t believe I was at Sammy’s house, nor could I believe what I saw there. He had a bowl of amyl nitrates on his coffee table. They were called poppers, and they were big in the disco scene; a blast sent a numbing shiver through your head and made you tingly. Michael and I disappeared into one of the bedrooms with several of them, got crazy, and then took some home with us.

The Playboy Mansion’s lush grounds included rolling grassy hills, a monkey cage, strolling peacocks, and rooms with pinball machines. The action took place around and in the swimming pool. It was most animated in a secret hot tub known as “the grotto.” The grotto was legendary for its anything-goes hookups. I never got naked in it or took off my top, as was common, but I partied in the steamy pool.

Michael and I inevitably broke up. Our lifestyle wasn’t conducive to longevity, and I was too insecure and unbalanced for a normal relationship. Michael was able to stop partying and resume a regular life. I didn’t have the same discipline. If there was coke, I had to stay up and do every last flake even if it meant going without sleep for days. Nothing else mattered.

Like the time Michael found me in the living room after one such jag totally unaware that the two of us were scheduled to meet David Greene and the Finnegans at a recording studio to do voice-overs for the movie. When I said I wasn’t up to it, he grabbed me and very clearly and forcefully said it wasn’t an either-or situation. I was too messed up to care. I said that I’d reschedule.

“No, no, no, you don’t get it,” he said. “You can’t blow this.”

“I can’t go,” I said.

And I didn’t. I stayed at Michael’s, where I continued to get high. Then David Greene called and said he needed me. There were costs involved with the studio time and deadlines, he explained. It didn’t register with me. I still didn’t leave the house, and that was the beginning of the end of so many things. Michael was disappointed and embarrassed when he came home. He said they found someone else to dub my part, which depressed me and led to a fight.

That was more and more typical of me. Anger was the only way I knew how to express the innermost awareness I had that I was fucking up. After that, Michael and I went downhill. One day, while swimming laps in his pool, I kicked too hard against an underwater light, broke it, and sliced my foot open on the glass. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Blood was all over the pool and the deck. Michael drove me to the emergency room, which I thought was sweet.

For Easter, he bought me a stuffed bunny. I thought, Oh, he really does love me. But a short time later, we broke up. We got into a terrible fight, and it ended with him saying we were finished. I only had my drug habit and myself to blame. But I wanted it to be his fault. I needed to blame someone other than myself. Before I stormed off that night, I took a cross that was one of his favorite possessions.

Later, after things cooled off, he asked if I’d taken it. I said no. I think he knew I was lying, but he didn’t press me. I’ve kept that cross for all these years. Every time I see it I’m reminded of that troubled time when I lied to Michael, lied to so many people, and lied most of all to myself.