Actress Mackenzie Phillips is now 63 years old. She has had a largely successful career in Hollywood.
Her most notable roles were of Carol Morrison in the movie American Graffiti, in her teenage years she played Julie Mora Cooper Horvath on the popular sitcom One Day at a Time and much more!
Laura Mackenzie Phillips was born on November 10, 1959 to her parents John Phillips, who was a singer in The Mamas & the Papas group and his first wife Susan Adams.
Later on in her life when she began her professional career, she became known only as Mackenzie Phillips. Her
She is widely known for her iconic roles in projects such as “American Graffiti,” “One Day at a Time,” “So Weird,” and “Orange Is The New Black.”
She was in Highland Hall Waldorf School, when at the age of 12 she formed a band with 3 of her classmates. A casting agent saw their band’s performance and this is where her career began.
It was the 1970s and Mackenzie got a role on “American Graffiti” and became she became a star in the 1970s. She then got the role of Julie Cooper in “One Day at a Time.”
When the show was in its third season, Mackenzie was arrested for possessing cocaine and then fired from the show in 1980. She returned to the show in 1981, however in 1983 she was fired again for sleeping during rehearsals and refusing to take a drug test. The writers wrote her character out of the show.
In her 2009 memoir “High on Arrival,” she revealed that the first time she tried drugs was when she was 11 years old and with her father.
Having started drug use at such a young age, she had two near-fatal experiences with overdosing and went to rehab after to get clean. She got clean in 1981 but relapsed soon after.
In 1992 she went to a long-term rehab program that lasted for nine months. But it clearly did not work because she was arrested in 2008 again for possession of drugs.
In the book, she also made the bomb-shell revelation that she had an incestuous relationship with her father, John Phillips. She said that she had kept the relationship a secret for 30 years.
Her father was a prominent American singer, promoter, songwriter, and guitarist frequently referred to as Papa John Phillips.
He formed the Mamas & the Papas group with Denny Doherty and Cass Elliot. This was the second musical group that he was a part of.
In 1981, John was arrested for drug trafficking and spent one month in jail as a result.
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John had married Susan Adams in 1957, he had two children with her Mackenzie and her brother Jeffrey. While they had been married, he famously had an extramarital affair with a teenage girl Holly Michelle Gilliam.
His marriage fell apart and on December 31, 1962, he married Gillam and the couple had one child together before they divorced 7 years later.
In 1972, he married for the third time. This time he married Geneviève Waïte. The couple had two children, Tamerlane and Bijou, and divorced in 1985.
In 1995, he married his fourth and final wife Artist Farnaz Arassteh. The couple was together till Phillips’s death on March 18, 2001.
Before his death, he had released an autobiography titled “Papa John.” In the book, he talked about his lifelong battle with alcohol and drugs. He also detailed his family’s history of substance abuse.
The relationship Mackenzie had with her father was deeply disturbing. She revealed that he introduced her to drugs when she was just 11 years old and had sexual intercourse with her when she was 19 years old.
In her book she revealed that a night before she married Jeffrey Sessler, her father checked into the same hotel and she had gone to see him. She admitted to having a lot of pills in her system while her father had a little of everything in his as well.
After she woke up from what she assumed was a black out, she was having sex with John and was unable to stop it. This was the first time she had been awake or present during such an instance and wondered if it had happened before.
She questioned her father and he did not seem too bothered by it. He told her since she did not protest he did not see anything wrong with it.
After ten years of an incestuous relationship, her father finally left her alone after she had gotten pregnant and feared the child might be his. He paid for her to have an abortion.
Despite such a disturbing relationship with her father, she revealed that she did not hold anything against him and had forgiven him on his deathbed. She said she realized he had been a tortured man who abused his power.
When the book came out, Phillip’s second wife Gilliam said she was shocked and embarrassed that Mackenzie would write such things in her book.
While she believed Mackenzie to be lying, her daughter Chynna seem to believe her sister. She said Mackenzie had confided to her about the relationship earlier.
In her interview with Oprah, Mackenzie said she could have handled it better and prepared the whole family before the release of her book. However, she was happy that she had forgiven her father.
Her father died from heart failure when he was 65 years old after suffering from a stomach virus that affected his kidneys.
After years of substance abuse and stints in rehab, Mackenzie decided to finally get her life turned around and became a rehab counselor at the Pasadena Recovery Center.
Her inner resilience is the reason for her being able to stay sober. She has been engaging in fun activities as well as acting; all of which help keep her on the straight and narrow!
Her life has been anything but easy but she has still made sure to not just thrive but also survive! We wish her the best of luck with her future!
