McGovern,
Maureen Therese (27th July
1949-Present)
She is a singer and stage
actress born in Youngstown, Ohio
and nicknamed "The Stradivarius Voice".Her father had a barbershop quartet and she would listen
to them rehearse and from the age of three began to sing.She knew by the time she was eight
that she wanted to be a singer.After she graduated from high school she would sing part-time in
Sweet Rain, which was a local folk band.She recorded a demo in 1972 which was heard by the head
of 20th Century Records, Russ Regan, and he hired her to sing
"The Morning After" which was the theme for the movie The Poseidon Adventure and won an
Academy Award for Best Original Song as well as reaching No. 1 in the pop
charts.The following year she
sang two further movies themes: "Wherever Love Takes Me" for Gold
, which one her an Academy Award nomination and "We May Never Love
Like This Again" forTheTowering Inferno, in which she also made a brief appearance performing
the song, and won an Academy Award.When her recording contract ended in 1976 her career suffered and
after having being cheated out of earnings by producers and managers, she
was broke.In 1979 she came
back with two US
chart singles: "Can You Read My Mind" which reached No. 59 and
"Different Worlds" which reached No. 18 on the pop charts and No.
1 on the Adult Contemporary chart.In 1980 she was the singing nun in the film Airplane! and from then on she concentrated on a Broadway
career.She debuted as Mabel
in The Pirates of Penzance
followed by Maria in the Sound of
Music and Nellie Forbush in South
Pacific.The Off-Broadway Brownstone saw her originating the
role of Mary in 1985 and it wasn't until 2005 in the role of Marmee in Little Women that she returned to
Broadway stage.Although that
production of it closed fairly quickly after bad reviews, she played the
role on a national tour.During the mid-1980s she went back to her musical roots and began
contributing to soundtracks, touring, recording and giving concerts solo as
well as with many symphony orchestras and the Boston Pops.Her debut in Carnegie Hall happened
in 1989 with a concert of Gershwin songs which also had a live recording
which became a CD and video.Her compositions include the children's musical The Bengal Tiger's Ball and the song "I Want to Learn to
Fly".She currently
continues touring and recording as well as appearing in musical theatre.
