If you are a fan of classic TV, then you’ve probably seen “The Brady Bunch” once. Notice those cool hairstyles on the guys? They were real.
Yes, the Brady men’s hair was naturally curly as Carol Brady herself, actress Florence Henderson, pointed out when talking about the ABC family sitcom.
“Those were not perms,” Henderson said in an interview with the Archive of American Television. “They actually had curly hair on the show. Robert Reed had naturally curly hair. We found that out when we went to Hawaii and his hair started curling up in the humidity.”
Reed played patriarch Mike Brady on “The Brady Bunch,” which ran between 1969-74 on ABC. Henderson takes a detour from talking about the show itself during the interview to point out the hairstyle situation.
Henderson and Reed, sadly, have died. Henderson died on Nov. 24, 2016, at 82 years old. Reed died on May 12, 1992, at 59 years old.
Star on ‘The Brady Bunch’ Helped Keep Things Loose on Set By Doing This
While “The Brady Bunch” definitely had its fair share of long days on set, Henderson was able to keep things loose.
Mike Lookinland, who played Bobby Brady on the sitcom, remembers that she would manage to know when a little stress relief was needed by the cast. He joined up with the other kid actors from the show during a 2019 reunion spot on NBC’s “Today” show.
“Florence Henderson was really a hoot,” Lookinland said. “She livened the place up. When things were tense and maybe we were behind schedule or something, Florence would crack a joke loudly, with a loud voice.
“I mean we were just children and I can just remember that being special…those were special moments,” Lookinland said. “Because you could see how the grown-ups interacted with each other and dealt with each other.”
Those grown-ups Lookinland, who is no longer in show business, was talking about included Henderson, Reed, and Ann B. Davis, who played Alice the housekeeper.
Apparently, “The Brady Bunch” child actors were doing more than rehearsing their lines. They were observing and watching what was going on while on set.
Speaking of Davis, she had quite a TV career before joining the show. Playing “Schotzy” on “The Bob Cummings Show,” also known as “Love That Bob,” she won two Emmy Awards. Davis earned four Emmy nominations in each of that show’s four seasons between 1955-59. No one on “The Brady Bunch” won one during the show’s original network run.
Ann B. Davis died on June 1, 2014.
