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 won her an Academy Award nomination and “We May Never Love Like This Again” for The Towering 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.
Maureen McGovern recordings
O Holy Night (Adolphe Charles Adam)
MK 45869 (CD – Christmas with Maureen McGovern)
Source: