Mary C. Brown and the Hollywood Sign

Updated on Apr 25, 2026

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Released November 1972 Release date November 1972 Producer Nick Venet		Artist Dory Previn Genre Pop Label Zonophone

Mary C. Brown and the Hollywood Sign(1972) Live at Carnegie Hall(1973) Similar Mythical Kings and Iguanas, Reflections in a Mud Puddle, Live at Carnegie Hall, On My Way to Where, We're Children of Coincide

Dory previn mary c brown and the hollywood sign

Mary C. Brown and the Hollywood Sign was the fourth solo LP by Dory Previn, released in November 1972. This was a thematic album about Hollywood misfits. The songs were intended for a musical revue that ran briefly in Los Angeles. It was planned to stage it on Broadway, but the previews were poor and the show was cancelled before it opened.

Left hand lost dory previn mary c brown and the hollywood sign

Reception

Robert Christgau, writing in Creem, panned the album, saying "Previn doesn't just belabor a cliche, she flails it with barbed wire, and she never writes about a concrete situation when with extra words she can falsify it with abstraction."

However, Charles Donovan, for AllMusic, wrote: "Even when writing in cliché she impresses: "The Perfect Man" is her take on the tale of the golden man with feet of clay, and should by rights be toe-curling and unimaginative. Instead, it's an arresting piece with a pretty, counterpoint piano accompaniment. Only the grating honky-tonk arrangements elsewhere disappoint."

Track listing

"Mary C. Brown and The Hollywood Sign" (4'41)
"The Holy Man On Malibu Bus Number Three" (4'45)
"The Midget's Lament" (4'07)
"When a Man Wants a Woman" (2'25)
"Cully Surroga He's Almost Blind" (5'12)
"Left Hand Lost" (4'56)
"The Perfect Man" (3'11)
"Starlet Starlet On The Screen Who Will Follow Norma Jean?" (2'36)
"Don't Put Him Down" (3'55)
"King Kong" (3'54)
Medley (8'36)
1. "Morning Star/Evening Star"
2. "Jesus Was a Androgyne"
3. "Anima/Animus"