Life Is Not a Stage (20 page)

The excitement of getting out of the studio to film at Kings Island, Hawaii, and the Grand Canyon is the easy answer whenever anyone asks me what my favorite episodes are. However, it could sometimes get a little too exciting outside the comfort zone of the studio. Accidents can happen anywhere, even on our set, as poor little Susan Olsen found out in our pilot episode. She got bonked in the face by a falling light fixture and needed a little extra makeup to mask the black and blue. But each of those location shoots had at least one major hair-raising moment we could have lived without. Stunt doubles, where were you when we needed you?

First, there was the roller-coaster scene at Kings Island. Bob refused to go on it because he was terrified of them. So who was going to go in his place? Me. If you watch that scene, you will see a horror-struck look on my face. It was not acting. Nor was it when Ann B. was thrown on top of me whenever we went around a curve. But what you don’t see is the blood running down the cameraman’s face. To get the shot, they first strapped him across from us on the back of the car. That didn’t work, so they sat him facing us in the seat in front of us. On the first big drop, the camera went flying and hit him in the face. With the bleeding stopped and the camera finally stabilized for everyone’s safety, we had to shoot another take. Not fun!

Now, about the Grand Canyon, let me say that the name is well deserved because it is deep, very deep, especially looking down a sheer cliff on a narrow trail while sitting on top of a very large mule. The scene called for all nine of us to ride the trail mules down a bit on the trail. A mule skinner named Al was in front, followed by Bob, Ann B., and the children. I brought up the rear. I am not an animal psychologist, so I do not know if it is possible for mules to have a “bad day.” But if one could, this was truly an awful one. In fact, my mule may have been having suicidal thoughts, judging by the way it was leaning over the edge and looking straight down. I didn’t want to be dragged along as a part of its death wish. The cameras were rolling.

“Al!” I cried out the mule skinner’s name as I saw myself a second or two away from going right over the mule’s head, disappearing into the abyss, and landing as a little puff of dust at the bottom à la Wile E. Coyote. “Al, what do I do?”

“Just pull up on the reins. It will be okay.” When they took me down from that mule at the end of the scene, my saddle was not dry!

The grand prize for near-death
Brady Bunch
experiences goes to the Hawaii trip. One of the writers came up with the idea of how nice it would be for all of us to be in an outrigger canoe. So there we were on the water, all nine of us, and told to wait to catch the next big wave. The boat with the director, the cameraman, and the other necessary members of the crew was a few yards away. We caught the wave, and everything was going great for about ten seconds until I saw that the man on the rudder of the crew boat had lost control of it. The boat was coming right toward us and our rudder man swamped us. Next thing I know, I’m upside down in the water underneath our capsized canoe. I’m hardly what you would call a fish, but I knew that Susan had good reason to pass on the swimming pool when she came over to our house. So my first thought was to hold on to her for dear life. Barry Williams was a strong swimmer, so at least that was a comforting thought in the moment. They righted the boat, and we all climbed back into it. The director said, “Let’s do that again!” Poor Susan was a wreck. And if things were not scary enough, my false eyelashes had come off—how rude! We were all shivering, and probably not just due to being cold. But we did it again. The people on shore were all shook up, and understandably, the parents of the kids were a wreck. Of course, we had not been given life jackets to wear. It could have been a major disaster.

Another surprise that I wasn’t quite prepared for was how seriously people took the show. Once they let you into their living rooms via that cathode-ray tube, you become part of their extended family. Accordingly, they had opinions on everything and were only too glad to share. People wrote in about how much they loved my hair or detested it. Part of that was due to the fact that I had to wear a big wig for the first season, the “bubble-do” I called it. My hair had been bleached more blonde to make me look closer to Norwegian for
The Song of Norway
, and it was clearly not right for the show. They had filmed the first six episodes without me, so I rushed back to do all the scenes to be inserted with no time to restore my hair color back to normal. That the hair attracted almost a cultlike interest amuses me to no end. Some tuned in for each season premiere with great anticipation just to see the new style for the year. And no one was indifferent about that poor, much-maligned mullet in the 1973–1974 season. It is quite a dubious honor to be known in some circles as “the Mother of the Mullet.”

Paramount conducted research to gauge public attitude beyond the hair when the show first came on the air. Some people resented that Carol Brady had a maid. “No wonder she looks so well!” Others thought the house looked too clean and loved any episode in which I got dirty. A sampling of some Avon ladies at the Plaza Hotel in New York objected to the glamorous way I appeared in the series. “Our kids expect us to look like you.” Okay, I grant you that the real Florence Henderson has never worn makeup, eyelashes, or lipstick to bed. I did always insist that Carol Brady would be in a beautiful nightgown when Bob and I had scenes in bed, even though that was far from my practice in real life. But it was part of the fantasy, and important to the special warmth and sexual chemistry that Bob and I wanted to project.

A sociologist or a psychologist would have a much better explanation for why
The Brady Bunch
hit a collective nerve and has endured as a global phenomenon for so long. In my opinion, it began with Sherwood Schwartz’s ingenious design that worked on so many levels. You know when an idea is truly good because things seem to snowball.

At its heart was the notion of the blended family, a father with three sons and a mother with three daughters coming together to form a new family. Blended families were hardly a new concept, but it probably took on a new significance given what people had gone through in the 1960s in breaking from longstanding traditional mores. (Remember the pill?) Divorce rates were up, and so blended families naturally became an increasingly commonplace occurrence. My widowed cousin had seven children. She married a man who had ten. They became the “Happy Hanawalts”—an homage to the Brady Bunch. I receive endless stories like that.

Sherwood also had the foresight to keep the show and its subject matter simple and quite universal to the shared experience of children and parents. Entering the Brady world for a half hour each week was designed to provide a gentle refuge. There were plenty of big problems in the real world to go around. Instead, we were a loving family who always tried to find a way to work through its challenges. Mike and Carol Brady were parents who seemed to understand their children and guide them without demeaning them or talking down to them to make them feel worthless. Perhaps the most controversial topic the show took up was Greg getting caught smoking cigarettes at a time when most teenagers were smoking and doing harder stuff. Otherwise, the story lines were grounded in wading through right versus wrong and navigating through a host of everyday moral and ethical issues. There seemed no end to the possible plotlines when mining the rich territory of sibling rivalries, dating, part-time jobs, extracurricular activities at school, and forays into an increasingly adult world.

By having nine cast members that include three children of different ages from each gender, Sherwood also insured that each viewer at home would have at least one character with whom they could identify closely. It was an especially gentle world as seen through the eyes of a child, so all kids could easily relate. That factor, along with the universality of the situations the family dealt with, has much to do with the show’s timeless, cross-cultural appeal over the decades. It was strange toward the end that when Sherwood and Lloyd (Sherwood’s son) tried to introduce some new dynamics to the show, notably Cousin Oliver (played by Robbie Rist to bring a new younger child to the mix) and the Kelly family next door (as a potential new series spin-off starring Ken Berry), the audience didn’t go for it. “Don’t mess with a good thing” was their message.

The other part of the equation that is a little less tangible was in the execution, what we as the actors brought to it. First and foremost, Bob and I tried to set the tone for the kids about being professional and doing our jobs the very best we possibly could. The kids learned that they had to come to the set prepared. Nobody gave them any slack in that regard. Since I was not only portraying a mother but was the only cast member who was a mother and a wife in real life, I think the parenting role spilled over into my relationship with the kids. The life of a child actor may sound appealing from the outside, but looking back over the history of the industry, such a large percentage of these children have had difficulties later on as they grew into adults. I tried to impart to the kids on the show a spirit of gratitude. I told them, “Don’t ever resent it. Always embrace what you do. Don’t talk badly about it. Don’t negate it. It is. It’s there. You did it. And you did it well. Accept that.” And for the most part, that’s what they did. Like a real family, we have all remained good friends throughout the years and stay in touch periodically.

Of all the kids, Barry Williams as Greg had the easiest time embracing his role. Barry had a serious interest in becoming a musical performer and he had talent, so I became a mentor to him of sorts. He listened to what I had to say and applied it. He was always a special kid, and I liked him from the start. All right, all right, I know what you’re thinking. So let’s deal with it once and for all. It is time for me to have the definitive say on our “affair.” Get ready for the row of asterisks.

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One of the most popular bits of
Brady Bunch
lore that has followed me like a piece of toilet paper stuck to a shoe is my alleged affair with Barry. So juicy is this rumor, some of you readers probably could not wait to purchase the book to leaf through and find this section to learn “the truth.”

Those of you who have diligently read this book from the beginning have already come to understand that Florence Henderson has a racy sensibility, in direct contrast to the more staid onscreen image of Carol Brady. Carol would not even give such an idea the dignity of a reply. She would have dismissed it immediately with a bat of a false eyelash. If it happened to be true, she would still deny it until such time as she reached a ripe old age where such things don’t really matter anymore. Until then, she would laugh with feigned disdain at why anyone would give credence to such a preposterous rumor.

But Florence Henderson is different.

When Barry published his account of the Brady years in the early 1990s, he put it out there that Florence Henderson and he went out on a date during those halcyon days. It is true. I won’t deny it. When the book came out, he asked me to do some interviews with him. Given our close relationship, how could I say no? Our date was a hot topic of conversation during these interviews. We were having fun with the idea. Now, since we’re both older, dating the more mature-looking version of Barry doesn’t seem like such a bad idea!

Barry asked me to go with him to hear a popular singer perform at the Cocoanut Grove, the famous but long gone Los Angeles nightclub. I didn’t give it all that much thought, since I would gladly have done the same for any of the older children if asked. Admittedly, Barry was making his first steps into adulthood at fifteen. But it was innocent enough, and I didn’t want to discourage him. At the time, he was not old enough to drive a car by himself. He had a learner’s permit, so he drove with his older brother in the car to pick me up. We then ditched the brother, so that we could be alone for our drive to the Grove. We went in and were shown to a lousy table. I whispered sweetly in Barry’s ear that the maître d’ was expecting a tip. Immediately upon payment, like magic, our host recognized the celebrities we were and showed us to an excellent table. After the concert, Barry was very sweet. We fetched his brother and he gave me a goodnight kiss at my hotel. So from his book, our playful but coy interviews, and the telephone game (where the facts change each time it’s retold) that followed, an urban legend was born.

What is very true is that Barry did have a serious crush on me, which I understood and helped him get past. Let us just say that if he had entertained a roll in the hay with me, I would never have done that.

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Undeniably we had a very special connection—and it goes without saying that I always felt like a surrogate mother to him and the rest of the kids. On a deeper level, I represented something to him that he admired. He loved music and knew that I could sing. He also liked my work ethic, and adopted it then as he still does today. He has remained a dear friend. I saw him together with his son Brandon not long ago. Brandon was about the same age as when I first met Barry, and the striking resemblance to the younger version of his father was almost miraculous.

The camaraderie with Barry and everyone in the production translated in no small measure to the good feeling that people at home felt watching the show. We brought the spirit of family not just to the characters we played but also to how we related to each other in real life. Working together the kind of hours we did, you can’t help it. My children would often come to the set, and they developed friendships of their own with their fictional counterparts. Barbara and Joe even acted in a couple of episodes. I got to know everything going on in the personal lives of crew members and their families and vice versa because we were so open with each other. The crew members loved it if you showed interest and respect about their crafts. Jimmy Fields, the head grip (electrician), taught me a lot about lighting. “Why are you using a 10K banger there?” I’d ask him. He made me an honorary member of the lighting guild. John Rich wanted to teach me how to direct because he thought I worked so well helping the kids. I told him that the technology was my Achilles’ heel, and I would never know enough about the camera to be good at it. “I’ll teach you,” he implored. I never took him up on it, and I sometimes feel regret about that.