As any good media consumer does, I was trolling CNN for the most important news stories on the most relevant topics.

And then I found…this

Marcia Brady was addicted to cocaine. She went to Hef’s Playboy Mansion parties. More importantly, SHE DATED MICHAEL JACKSON AND STEVE MARTIN.

I don’t tend to use this phrase without irony but WTF?!

As a kid, there was nothing I loved to watch more on television than reruns of The Brady Bunch. This is so true that I even OWNED a Brady Bunch CD full of campy tunes that I absolutely adored.

In her new book, Maureen McCormick says that the root of her problems with depression, drugs and alcohol was the standard of perfection that being Marcia Brady forced her to live up to.

Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

At first I laughed when I read this article but when I really thought about what is at stake when an actor/actress is completely defined by one role, it made me really sad.

I am the first person to admit that television, movies, music, etc. are all forms of entertainment. Obviously.

But and this is a big but (yeah, yuck it up), actors…wait for it…are…PEOPLE. They are fallible human beings and are, in most cases, not their characters.

I think as a society we outwardly recognize that this is true but if I had seen Maureen McCormick on the street in the early 1970s, I would have thought…”Man, I bet she is sooooo sweet.”

Despite my empathy for Maureen McCormick and all actors who fall prey to the subconscious associations of society, I ain’t buyin’ her book.

Like she says in the article, she has worked long and hard to create a personality outside of Marcia Brady. I’m not about to purchase anything that sends her back to the mental drawing board.

I do, however, sincerely hope that Maureen McCormick and all the readers of The Lowdown have….

A SUNSHINE DAY