Marcia Hines is a beloved musical treasure of Australia with a career spanning more than fifty years.
WATCH NOW: Marcia Hines performs on Australian Idol in 2004. Article continues after video.
From her initial move down under from the US as a 16-year-old to star in a stage production of the hit musical Hair to the millions of singles and albums sold, to more recently re-joining the judging panel for Australian Idol, her 70 years of life have been nothing short of extraordinary.
But for Marcia, her daughter Deni is her greatest achievement of all, the 53-year-old following in her mother’s footsteps with a celebrated music career of her own.
Arriving on Aussie shores as a talented teenager in 1970 for her first professional performance contract, a then 16-year-old Marcia had no clue that she was pregnant.
It was only when she was in her final trimester that the singer realised she expecting, an unexpected outcome from her first sexual experience.
But, whilst a surprise, her darling Deni was a welcome one.
“Having Deni made me grow up quickly. I’ve only had one child, and I’m really glad I did it,” she shared with Stellar in 2017.
In the same interview, Marcia admitted that motherhood had taught her to be “selfless.”
“You could be dressed to the nines, ready to go out and they would vomit all over you. It teaches you so much more about yourself than you’d ever know.”
Forever the performer, Deni was onstage just hours before giving birth, making her return just nine days post-partum.
Fast forward to adulthood, and Marcia’s influence on her only child shone through, Deni undertaking a music career of her own.
“I was surprised when Deni followed me into the music industry. We sang at home a lot, but I thought she wanted to be a coroner,” Marcia joked.
“Music was an integral part of our home, so she decided to do that. She has such a beautiful voice, one of the most unique voices I’ve ever heard.”
After Marcia’s father passed away when she was just six months old, and her older brother Dwight passed away when she was 28, her mother Esme moved to Australia to live with Marcia, taking care of her granddaughter as Marcia performed across the country.
“I won’t say my mother was a saint, but I think some people just are good mothers, and I was really blessed to [have] a great mother,” Marcia shared with our sister publication The Australian Women’s Weekly in 2019.
“Deni had two parents; her gran and me.”
When Esme passed away in 2003, Marcia fell into a deep grief.
“She died in my arms. That was my gift. It wasn’t awful, but it was the beginning of the end. For me to hold her and to know that she had held me, was pretty nice,” the singer has previously admitted.
“But I don’t think she’s ever left me. When I get confused we have a bit of a chat,” she reflects fondly.
As for her love life, Marcia has been married four times.
Firstly to French businessman Andre DeCarpentry, then to keyboard player Jamie McKinley and businessman Ghassan Bayni, and finally Christopher Morrissey whom she was married to from 2005 until 2014.
Whilst Marcia has previously been rumored to be in a relationship with an undisclosed man, it is currently unclear if she is still in that same relationship, or if she is instead single.
