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Brady Bunch mum Florence Henderson dies aged 82

Staff writers and wires, News Corp Australia Network

FLORENCE Henderson, the wholesome actress who went from Broadway star to television icon when she became Carol Brady, the ever-cheerful mum presiding over The Brady Bunch, has died.

She was 82.

Henderson suffered heart failure on Thursday night at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after being hospitalised the day before, her publicist David Brokaw and manager Kayla Pressman said.

She died surrounded by family and friends, Ms Pressman said.

Henderson

Maureen McCormick, who played Carol Brady’s eldest daughter, Marcia, was the first to send tributes to her on screen mother.

Some of her other on-screen kids also paid tributes, including Barry Williams (Greg Brady) who once confessed to having a crush on his TV mum.

Christopher Knight (Peter Brady) said he was grief-striken by the news.

Susan Olsen (Cindy Brady) asked that Henderson’s real life children be remembered as they mourn their mother. (Henderson had four children with Bernstein - Barbara, Joseph, Bob and Elizabeth.)

media_cameraSusan Olsen, aka Cindy Brady, and Florence Henderson, aka Carol Brady. Picture: Facebook

THE SHOW THAT CHANGED IT ALL

Millions loved, and kept on loving, the innocent sitcom about a blended family.

The Brady Bunch, first aired in 1969, returned to television in various forms again and again, including The Brady Bunch Hour in 1977, The Brady Brides in 1981 and The Bradys in 1990. It was also seen endlessly in reruns.

“It represents what people always wanted: a loving family. It’s such a gentle, innocent, sweet show, and I guess it proved there’s always an audience for that,” Henderson said in 1999.

The show was among the first to introduce to television the blended family. As its theme song reminded viewers each week, Henderson’s Carol was a single mother raising three daughters when she met her TV husband, Robert Reed’s Mike Brady, a single father who was raising three boys. The eight of them became The Brady Bunch, with a quirky housekeeper, played by Ann B Davis, thrown into the mix.

Of her time playing Carol Brady, she said on her Facebook page: “I played Carol as the mother I always wished I had, as the mother a lot of people wished they had.”

media_cameraThe cast of Brady Bunch (front row) Susan Olsen, Mike Lookinland (middle row) Eve Plumb, Florence Henderson, Robert Reed, Maureen McCormick (back row) Chistopher Knight, Barry Williams, Ann B. Davis.

The blonde, ever-smiling Henderson was already a Broadway star when the show began, having originated the title role in the musical Fanny. But after The Brady Bunch, she would always be known to fans as Carol Brady.

“We had to have security guards with us. Fans were hanging on our doors. We couldn’t go out by ourselves. We were like the Beatles!” she said of the attention the show brought the cast.

EARLY LIFE

Henderson was born on Febuary 14, 1934, in the small town of Dale in Indiana. She was the 10th child of a tobacco sharecropper of Irish descent. After high school she moved to New York, where she enrolled in a two-year program at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, her studies financed by a theatrical couple who had been impressed by her singing when they saw her perform in high school.

She dropped out of the program after one year, however, to take the role in Wish You Were There at age 19.

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were so impressed they made her the female lead in a 1952 road tour of Oklahoma! When the show returned to Broadway for a revival in 1954, she continued in the role and won rave reviews.

media_cameraFlorence Henderson said she felt grateful to still be working in her older years. Picture: Supplied

LIFE AFTER THE BRADY BUNCH

After The Brady Bunch ended its first run, Henderson alternated her appearances in revivals of the show with guest appearances on other programs, including Hart to Hart, Fantasy Island and The Love Boat.

In later years, she also made guest appearances on such shows as Roseanne, Ally McBeal and The King of Queens.

Henderson married theatre executive Ira Bernstein and the couple had four children before the union ended in divorce after 29 years.

Her second husband, John Kappas, died in 2002.

media_cameraFlorence Henderson, left, appears with The Brady Bunch co-star Ann B. Davis in 2003. Picture: AP

HENDERSON WORKED UNTIL THE END

One of her final public outings is believed to have been an appearance on the finale of the American version of Dancing with the Stars, where she was in the audience to support fellow Brady Bunch cast member, Maureen McCormick, who was a contestant on the dancing show.

Last year, an 81-year-old Henderson said she felt “so blessed” to be able to still do what she loved.

“I work all the time, I’m grateful,” she told the Today show in America.

The outpouring of tributes from Hollywood illustrated what a beloved person Henderson was in real life.

Originally published as Brady Bunch stars farewell ‘mum’