Star's revival story inspires graduates

The singer's cousin told graduates to remember their roots.
MAUREEN McGOVERN WAS BLESSED with a golden voice, but also hampered by a lack of assertiveness, the Boardman native told graduates in Youngstown on Sunday.
McGovern rocketed to fame at age 23 with "The Morning After," her Academy Award-winning hit song from "The Poseidon Adventure" in 1972. But she described a series of miscues and bad advice that threatened to make her a washed-up, one-hit wonder by the time she was 25.
"Early in my career, I let a lot of people make my decisions for me. Whoever spoke the loudest could shut me up," said McGovern, who delivered the fall 2004 commencement address to 650 Youngstown State University graduates at Beeghly Center.
"I had to learn that by not making a choice, I was making a choice."
McGovern, who graduated from Boardman High School, shared the stage with another Boardman High alumna named McGovern. Her second cousin once removed, Mollie McGovern, was the featured student speaker. The producer of "WFMJ Today," Mollie McGovern earned a master of business administration.
"If I had to offer any advice today, it would be to remember your roots, whether you're from here or some place else," Mollie McGovern told fellow graduates.
She then shared a piece of her heritage, reading a poem from Michael McGovern, a 19th-century steelworker who immigrated to Youngstown from Ireland. He is Mollie McGovern's great-great-grandfather, and the great-grandfather of Maureen McGovern.
The singer McGovern said she made a conscious decision in third grade to pursue a music career. She recalled her fascination as a small child with her father's barbershop quartet.
"I would go around and sing all of the parts right along with them," she said. "That was my first lesson in harmony. ... When I was singing, nothing else mattered."
McGovern's road to stardom was far from smooth, however. She said dyslexia made it difficult to read music. In fifth grade, she said, her piano teacher bluntly told her, "You're just wasting your parents' money."
McGovern persevered. She told the graduates that people who succeed are not the smartest or most talented, but those who do not give up.
Big break
McGovern caught her big break when a Cleveland producer discovered her and got her a recording deal with 20th Century Records.
"The Morning After," which was played while YSU officials conferred an honorary doctor of music on her, was the first song she recorded.
But the attention from the song, which captured an Academy Award, proved short-lived. McGovern said her manager convinced her to sign a contract that allowed him to take up to 40 percent of her earnings. The contract also paid McGovern's band a weekly salary, whether she was performing or not.
As a result of poor choices, McGovern said, she ended up performing at the Trolley Bar Lounge in Green Tree, Pa., only months after "The Morning After" was released.
By the end of the year she was flat broke and dumped by her record label, McGovern said. She moved to Los Angeles and took a job as a secretary under an assumed name, fearing her music days was over.
McGovern began to resurrect her career in 1979, though, performing "Can You Read My Mind," from the "Superman" movie. The song was a hit, and although the album failed, she branched out into other outlets. She did radio advertisements, wrote children's music and began acting.
Her movie roles include "Airplane!" and "Towering Inferno." She replaced Linda Ronstadt in the "Pirates of Penzance" on Broadway.
"I didn't know enough to be as frightened as I should have been," she said.
McGovern finds steady work these days. She stars in "Little Women, The Musical," which opens next month on Broadway and has recorded a new version of "The Morning After."
This evening at 8, she will perform at Stambaugh Auditorium to benefit the university's Dana School of Music and the Neil Kennedy Recovery Clinic. The graduates all received free tickets to the concert.
McGovern told the graduates that it's never too late to fulfill their dreams but encouraged them to be smart. Get a mentor and form short- and long-term plans, she said.
"Early in my career, I had the goal, but I didn't have the plan," she said.