10

Wonderland Avenue

I looked for something different, a proving ground, something that would show me off to the Hollywood community in a new light, and I found it in a production of Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit. The play was about three people thrown together in a room that turns out to be hell—and hell, of course, turns out to be other people.

Veteran actors Vince Cannon and Marian McCargo Bell occupied the top spots on the marquee of the small theater in Beverly Hills. My name was underneath in smaller letters. That seemed appropriate to me. I was in a work mode. I told Tracy Roberts, the play’s director and a renowned acting coach, that I looked forward to the challenge of being onstage without any second takes or safety net.

The two of us had a long talk about acting, the work I had done, and the work I hoped to do. I spoke to her about some of my frustrations to that point. Because of the nature of the play, she got me to open up further about my nonacting life. We got into a pretty heavy conversation. She stared at me with an intensity that almost lifted me from my chair. I’d never been studied like that.

“You surprise me,” she said.

“Is that good?” I asked.

“It’s not good or bad,” she said. “I’m surprised.”

“What do you mean?”

She smiled.

“There’s more to Marcia Brady than we know.”

“Right,” I said, with a slight, self-satisfied grin.

Besides rehearsals, preparations for the play included heavy-duty conversations about life among Tracy, Vince, Marian, and myself. Since I didn’t come from a family where we talked openly or communicated easily, I was initially reluctant to share my thoughts. Rather, I was intimidated. I was younger than the others, had fewer real-world experiences, and little formal education. What did I know about life compared to my more seasoned co-stars?

I was especially impressed by Marian, whose life was the stuff of fiction. She grew up back east, where she was a top tennis player in the 1950s. She married an advertising executive, moved to L.A. and had four sons before divorcing in 1963. Three years later, she began acting in the movies Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round and Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell and also the TV series Perry Mason, Hogan’s Heroes, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. In 1970, she married a widowed congressman with three boys of his own.

Essentically, she was dramatically different from my mother, and I was flattered when she took an interest in me. One day she said she wanted to introduce me to an up-and-coming young actor. She said he was handsome and sweet. Moreover, she said that she thought we’d look good together.

I gave my okay, and she arranged for Eric to come by the theater one afternoon a few days later. Even before we were formally introduced, I recognized him from across the backstage area by her description. Eric was blond, with a great build, and a smile that lit up the room. Then Marian introduced us, and I realized she was a good matchmaker. We hit it off immediately. He came back that night for the performance, and afteward we went for a drive in his car, an AMC Pacer.

It was a cute car with some zip and a slick backside. I remember it because that was also my impression of Eric—cute with a slick backside.

He took me to his house, which was off Coldwater Canyon and along a street that wound through the hills and then past a large gate. Getting there in the dark seemed like an adventure. We finally stopped in front of a breathtaking ranch-style home. He parked at the end of the driveway and began leading me around back. I was able to peek inside a couple windows. It looked very elegant.

“Watch your step,” Eric said.

We were going around back and needed to follow a brick path. He held on to my arm—a good thing for me since I continued to glance around. The property included a pool and tennis court and was set amid a rustic landscape that overlooked the Franklin Reservoir.

“You live here?” I asked.

“I’ll show you where I live,” he said.

This was his parents’ house, he explained, while leading me around the side and up private stairs that stopped at the entrance to what by then felt like a separate house. Before entering, we turned around and looked at the view. The moon cast the property in a soft light. I saw the swimming pool and tennis court below us. Giant trees were on either side. It was magnificent.

“Come on in,” he said. “This is where I live.”

Eric lived in what I initially assumed was the guest room, except it was much larger than a room. It was more like a guest wing. It had its own entrance, and included a bedroom, living room, and full bathroom. It was connected to the main house, but Eric could lock the doors and make it completely private if he wanted. I put my hands on my cheeks and said the only thing that came to mind—wow!

We spent several hours together, talking and listening to music. He told me about his family. I’d already gathered they were quite wealthy. He mellowed out with a joint. We also made out. I let myself be swept away. At one point, I opened my eyes, looked over his shoulder, and asked myself how did I get here again? I felt like Cinderella and that I was in a fairy tale.

It was late when Eric took me back to my car in back of the theater. I drove home, replaying the night in my head. I had to thank Marian.

Photographic Insert I

Baby Maureen, eighteen months old.

My father, Richard McCormick.

My dad’s father, Joseph McCormick.

My dad and his mom, Nana.

Granddad Theodore, Grandma Helen, and my mother, Irene.

My mother, age 22, 1943.

The wedding of Richard and Irene McCormick.

Young Maureen, 1959.

Young Maureen with her dolls, 1959.

New bathing suit.

With Dad at the ocean.

Denny joins me and Judy Anderson for tea in the backyard.

The house on top of the hill in which I was born. “The do-it-yourself house.”

With Christine Machette, who was also in the Baby Miss San Fernando Valley beauty pageant, 1963.

Getting ready for the role in Heidi, 1968.

Taping the one hundredth episode.

The Brady kids and their parents.

The Grand Canyon, 1971.

The Grand Canyon episode.

Mom and me at home during the Brady years.

Hawaii—from the left: Frances Whitfield (set social worker), Willie Knight (Chris Knight’s mom), my mom, and Dee Olsen (Susan Olsen’s mom). Top, right: Mildred Schwartz.

Barry and I were inseparable while on the Hawaii shoot, 1972.

Bobby’s all tuckered out.

Ann B. Davis and me in Hawaii. Vintage Maureen, hiding her stomach.

Chris Knight and me, 1972.

Visiting Marine One, 1970.

Debbie Anderson and me; high school buddies, 1973.

Me and my prom date, 1974.

The Valley Girls, 1978. Clockwise from top left: Kathy Miller, Judy Kaufman, me, and Carin.

With Steve Hartanian, 1973.

My condo in West Hollywood, “the Pink Palace,” 1978 or 1979.

Circa 1986.

Carin and me, 1988.

Kevin and me in “Heavenly Hana,” 1975.

 

The play ran for a couple more weeks, and Eric came to the theater every day. We went out for dinner following each performance, and talked into the night. I fell for him quickly. At the end of the first week, I spent the night at his place and I didn’t have any doubt afterward that we had made love.

I woke up knowing that I was in love with Eric. There was no other way to explain how I felt. One day those words came out of his mouth, too.

Within a couple weeks of the play ending, I moved into his place. I was spending all my time there, so why not? My parents were livid. They didn’t believe in living together, and they thought I was too young at 18 to make such a commitment.

We continued to argue about it long after I made the move. I called them old fashioned and claimed they didn’t understand me. It created a real strain.

On the other hand, Eric’s parents embraced me as if I were a member of their large family. They had a passel of children; Eric was right in the middle. After I moved in, we quit dating and hung out at his house. There was no reason to go anyplace else. Eric’s family employed a full-time chef, who served us steak and eggs in the morning and snacks by the pool.

The lifestyle was ridiculously luxurious—and fattening! I gained so much weight I started to wear overalls to cover up my tummy.

Eric’s mother laughed when she saw me patting my belly one day out by the pool. She was a Grace Kelly–type, who was as comfortable in shorts as she was full-length gowns. Eric’s stepfather was a powerful but charming and debonair businessman. He was dashing in his own way. With all those boys at the table, playing tennis and jumping in the pool, Eric’s family reminded me of a camp where the campers had come as little boys and never gone home.

“This is like a dream,” I repeatedly told Eric, who still probably had no idea how truly overwhelmed I felt by his family and their way of life.

I was embarrassed to take him to my family’s home. How was I supposed to explain the mess in each room? This is the junk my mother hordes? Nor did I picture introducing him to Kevin or Denny, who was at any moment liable to blurt out, “My father had an affair with Kathy Pointer” or “My sister is Marcia Brady.”

There was too much to explain or, from another angle, there was too much I didn’t want to explain. Although Eric and I talked about everything, I kept certain things off-limits. I didn’t see the point in telling him about my mother’s condition, her mother’s sad fate, or that deep down I believed I also inherited syphilis and would end up going insane like my grandmother. Those subjects were private, too personal.

One of the things I loved about Eric was the way being with him spirited me away from all of those fears, insecurities, and embarrassments.

 

One day Eric said he wanted to take me to his teacher’s house. I had no idea what he meant by “his teacher.” He hadn’t mentioned anything about an acting class or that he was studying with anyone. It could have been a point of conversation had I been more inquisitive, but I followed him into his Pacer and drove through the canyon to meet his teacher.

Eric turned on Wonderland Ave., a marvelously named street that twisted and turned up Laurel Canyon. Dwellings of every type, from shacks to mansions, dotted the street. He turned into a driveway and stopped at the gate. When it opened, I couldn’t believe my eyes. In front of me was a stone cottage set amid a perfectly manicured lawn, flower gardens, pond, rocks, and a wishing well. It was a rich hippie’s interpretation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

“Oh my God, this is amazing.”

“Wait,” said Eric. “It gets better.”

He was right. We walked inside and my mouth dropped as he took me on a mini-tour. The house was fabulous, all stone and polished wood, with ferns and plants—how I imagined the Hobbit would have lived if J.R.R. Tolkein had set him in Los Angeles in the 1970s. Except it would turn out that the home’s owner, Bill, whom Eric introduced as his teacher, was more like Smaug, the volatile, powerful, controlling, manipulative dragon with all the treasure in his dark cave.

Initially, though, Bill impressed me as friendly and upbeat. Thanks to my connection to Eric, he greeted me warmly and invited me in as if we were old pals. In his mid-thirties, blond and fair-skinned, he had the shape of someone who lived well and didn’t often deprive himself of many pleasures. We liked each other right way. I also liked his wife, a cute, slender woman with long brown hair. She dressed like a chic flower child. Then again, so did I. Jeans, work shirts, peasant tops…it was all de rigueur for the times.

Bill ushered us into the living room. A handful of people—mostly guys, but a few pretty girls—were already lounging there. Eric knew everyone and introduced me as we sat on a sofa. After taking in the furniture, the large stone fireplace, the wood floors, and Oriental carpets, my eyes fell on the large glass coffee table and the pile of white powder in the middle of it.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“You don’t know?” said Eric.

“No.”

“It’s cocaine,” he said, with a laugh.

“That’s cocaine?”

“Yes.”

This was a heavy-duty scene camouflaged as a party. It was as if someone had harnassed a cloud and pushed it onto the table. There must have been a pound, maybe more, of white powder. Though I didn’t realize it then, displaying it like that was the ultimate power trip. It was out in the open, but there was no mistaking that Bill controlled it. Even I on my first visit picked up the vibe. The happy-making powder belonged to him, and you only did it at his discretion.

But Eric snorted a line and asked me if I wanted to try one. Bill also encouraged me. I was hesitant, but only because I didn’t know how. I wanted to try it. I was curious. With others encouraging me (“you’re going to love it,” they said) Eric guided me through my first line.

“I don’t feel anything,” I said. “The inside of my nose burns. Otherwise—”

“Do some more,” Eric said.

Sometimes I wonder how my life would’ve been different if I’d said no and never done another line again. But that’s not what happened. I snorted several more lines and soon I understood what everyone in the room had tried to explain. The conversation, the music, everything was suddenly better. And so was I. It was as if I’d stepped out of my normal shell full of insecurities and worries and into a different and far cooler, mellower, and more fun skin.

I felt great.

Someone made the first of many Marcia Brady cracks: “God, if America only knew Marcia Brady was getting high.”

Hours later, I was still doing lines. Eric and his friends noted how I went from a novice to doing more than any of them. I shrugged. Why stop?

I wanted more, more, more—and just my luck, there seemed to be an unlimited supply.

 

Eric and I got home as the sun was coming up. I was exhausted, but in a good way. I felt like my eyes had been opened and my mind expanded. I thought I understood why Eric referred to Bill as his teacher, and I was eager for my next lesson.

I didn’t have to wait long. Eric took me back again the following night and from then on we spent the majority of our time at Bill’s. It was like we were sucked from the real world into that self-contained scene, which, as I quickly learned, had its own social order. Bill sat on top. He was a major coke connection to a strata of rockers, movie stars, TV actors, and children from Hollywood’s wealthiest families.

Bill had several guys working for him, and they also had an elite clientele. By hanging out at his house, though, Eric and I were in the red hot center of it. So were Eric’s friends: Andy, Clark, Braden, Conrad, and Tony. Like Eric, they were good-looking children from some of Hollywood’s most privileged and powerful families, including a studio president, an accountant, an Oscar-winning producer, a network bigwig, and an agency honcho.

I was clearly from a different world when they spoke of homes in Malibu and Colorado, trips to Europe, and boats kept at the marina. The great common denominator was our time to hang out and party. We played backgammon, talked, and did coke. Our lives centered around Bill’s stash. It seemed I was able to do more than anyone else. It earned me the nickname “Hoover,” like the vacuum cleaner.

After complaining of trouble going to sleep, someone turned me onto quaaludes and I got in the habit of using them to come back down. I was able to get a prescription from my gynecologist, who also provided refills.

All that partying made me careless. When I missed my period, I had a scary suspicion as to why, but I still waited more than a week just to be sure. I bought a home pregnancy test and it came back positive. I sat Eric down in the living room and started to tell him the news, but I broke down before getting all the words out.

Eric held me until I calmed down and assured me things would be okay. We knew we weren’t ready to have a child, and I wasn’t prepared to carry a baby to term and give it up for adoption. That left one option. I needed to get an abortion.

Eric and I didn’t discuss it in depth, but we discussed it enough so that we reassured each other we were making the best decision for us. That didn’t mean it was easy for either of us. Eric agreed to pay for it, since my parents handled all my finances and I wasn’t about to ask them for money.

As for how we were supposed to arrange for the procedure, and who was going to do it, well, that was another complication. I felt too guilty and embarrassed to ask even my closest friends. So one day I made call after call to doctors and hospitals, using a fake name and voice to inquire, and I panicked when I was unable to find anyone to do the procedure. I remember sitting on Eric’s bed and thinking, Oh my God, I am going to have to have this baby.

Finally, I turned to my gynecologist, the one who gave me quaaludes, and he agreed to perform the abortion. Good news had never made me feel so bad.

Eric drove me to the hospital, where I changed clothes, laid on a bed, and was wheeled into a room where several other girls waited just like me. I’d never been in a hospital before. Eric stayed by my side, comforting me. I was scared of the procedure and even more frightened of being recognized.

When it was my turn, I was grateful they didn’t call my name. A nurse came and wheeled me into another room. Eric waited outside. I put myself in another headspace and followed instructions. As I think about it now, I was present but not really there. It was like an out of body experience. Afterward, Eric took me back to his place, where I spent the next couple of days in a fog.

I knew it wouldn’t be like this for long, and it wasn’t. As soon as I felt ready, we went back to Bill’s.