The Brady Bunch family are about as wholesome as wholesome gets on-screen.
However, the tragic real-life stories of the actors and actresses who portrayed them serve
as proof that even the most functional of All-American families might not be what they
seem.
Maureen McCormick's life was absolutely nothing like that of the clean-cut, eldest Brady daughter
she portrayed on television.
The Marcia Brady actress nearly became a child star cliché when she developed an addiction
to cocaine around the age of 18.
In her 2008 tell-all memoir, Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True
Voice, McCormick admitted that her addiction was so severe that she, quote, "had sex with
a cocaine dealer in exchange for drugs".
She was also consistently missing out on acting opportunities because she'd show up for meetings
high.
However, McCormick's rock bottom didn't come until she went on a three-day cocaine binge
and missed her audition for The Brady Brides in the early '80s.
According to Today, her agent climbed a ladder to break into her bedroom and dragged her
out of her closet:
"He tore my clothes off, threw me in the shower and told me we're going to Paramount."
Thankfully, McCormick found sobriety in 1985 after meeting husband Michael Cummings.
He threatened to leave after she relapsed while they were dating, she told US Weekly
in 2018.
She explained:
"It was like the coldest shower you could ever take.
There's just no way I'm gonna lose somebody that I love."
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, please call the Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Administration's 24/7 National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
That's 1-800-662-4357.
Maureen McCormick's drug-addled lifestyle led her to lose more than just a few movie
roles, like a coveted spot in Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark.
According to her memoir, the Brandy Bunch star also had three unwanted pregnancies.
She wrote:
"I was 18, 19 and 20 when I had each abortion.
It shows how careless I was.
It shows what drugs did to me and how far I went."
That said, the TV star's biggest fear at the time was contracting an STD.
While speaking with Today in 2008, McCormick revealed:
"My grandmother died in a mental hospital from syphilis , going insane.
Her husband committed suicide a week later."
While the actress was terrified of suffering the same fate, penicillin has been used to
cure the disease since 1943, according to Business Insider.
She continued:
"My mother contracted syphilis.
And I thought that I had syphilis growing up my whole life.
I thought that I would also go insane and end up in a mental institution.
It was awful.
I was battling depression for a long, long time."
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call or chat online with
the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Or Text HOME to the Crisis Text Line 741741.
Marcia was always positioned as the prettier, more popular sister — at least in Jan's
opinion.
In truth, Maureen McCormick struggled with her character's image.
But the TV star's deep-seated issues didn't begin and end with cocaine use; she also battled
bulimia for a decade.
In a 2007 interview with People, McCormick admitted that pressure from the show wasn't
what actually gave her an eating disorder.
Instead, it was her experience as a teenager.
She first developed disordered eating habits at age 17 when she enrolled in public high
school.
She said:
"I was with some girls, we had a gallon of ice cream, and someone mentioned how we could
eat it all and not gain weight.
It seemed ideal.
Once I started [purging], it was hard to stop."
Being forced to don a bathing suit for the camera in her on-screen work following The
Brady Bunch only bolstered her disorder.
She told People:
"That made me so self-conscious."
It seemed that every time she gained weight, she'd go right back to purging, even if she
thought she had kicked the habit.
Thankfully, the actress ended up recovering from bulimia, and said of her success:
"Being able to quit drugs and finding belief in a higher power gave me the tools to end
the bulimia."
Jan and Marcia didn't just have some weird sort of rivalry on The Brady Bunch; on-screen
sisters Eve Plumb and Maureen McCormick also didn't get along in real life.
According to Radar Online, their feud was reportedly so severe that a 2010 reunion was
completely nixed in its wake, more than 30 years after the actresses shared the screen
on the famed series.
So, what could possibly cause a decades-long grudge?
Apparently, it was Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!
In a 2008 interview with Today, McCormick claimed the pair were best friends at one
point, and that she missed Plumb, quote, "very much," but things were never the same after
she got carried away on a late-night show decades prior.
McCormick was promoting the 1981 spinoff The Brady Brides and making light of the rumors
surrounding the cast when she jokingly claimed to have kissed Plumb, who was less-than-thrilled
with the lesbian rumor her joke helped ignite.
McCormick explained:
"I said I fell in love with everybody.
I was having fun, something I was joking with, and she didn't take it that way."
McCormick alleged that she's since tried to make things right with Plumb, but to no avail,
as she's reportedly refused to answer her calls.
As we know from The Brady Bunch theme song, the girls have golden hair just like their
mother, which is a seminal feature of the bunch's blended family.
According to Mental Floss, producers of the series specifically set out to have the children's
hair match their respective biological on-screen parents.
They had two sets of children ready for their close up: a group of dark-haired boys and
blonde girls and a group of blonde boys and dark-haired girls.
Eventually, a blonde Florence Henderson was cast as the Brady matriarch and the rest was
history.
Unfortunately, Susan Olsen, who was just eight years old when she first starred as the youngest
Brady child, reportedly wasn't the right shade of blonde and had to bleach her hair.
Anyone who's ever become a bottle blonde knows that bleaching can be painful.
Not only can it melt off swaths of your hair, it's also immensely itchy — and we haven’t
even mentioned the potential chemical burns.
Nonetheless, producers allegedly bleached Olsen's hair so much that by the second season
it was, quote, "falling out in clumps," according to Mental Floss.
Thankfully, creator Sherwood Schwartz eventually stepped in and allowed the poor child star's
natural hair color to shine freely.
As the youngest Brady daughter, Susan Olsen didn't really get into very much trouble while
she was on the The Brady Bunch.
Sure, the Cindy Brady actress kissed on-screen brother Mike Lookinland in the set's doghouse
at nine years old, but that's merely the stuff of innocent playground crushes.
Though the family sitcom was truly a product of the '70s, Cindy was a little young to try
the devil's lettuce like some of her on-screen brothers.
Olsen only ventured into the world of drugs once she was an adult.
The former child star addressed these drug dealer rumors in an interview with News.com.au
years later:
"I guess technically, but I was really a [marijuana] grower, my husband at the time and I grew
it hydroponically.
I have never really enjoyed smoking it, it makes me very paranoid.
But it was my husband's idea."
To be clear: Olsen was growing cannabis years before it was legalized for recreational use
in some states.
Though the TV star found her foray into illicit gardening enjoyable, Olsen resented the fact
that she was doing something, quote, "so illegal."
It ultimately became one of the reasons she filed for divorce.
Robert Reed, who was best known as patriarch Mike Brady, never publicly came out as a gay
man.
While he didn't explicitly discuss his sexuality with the cast, it became known among them
regardless.
According to the Miami Herald, Florence Henderson first discovered his sexuality while they
were rehearsing a kiss scene for the pilot.
Years later, Reed's on-screen kids realized they all knew their TV dad's secret while
attending Maureen McCormick's wedding.
Susan Olsen told News.com.au:
"He never meant for us to know.
He never ever had any intentions of coming out of the closet, and I think he might have
been mortified to know that we knew [...] None of us ever talked about it because we didn't
think it was a big deal."
"Oh good.
I thought the whole world could see it."
However, the cast fully supported Reed, even if he wasn't aware of it.
He died in 1992 after battling cancer and HIV.
Huffington Post reported that Olsen took to Facebook to open up about her belief that,
quote, "being gay killed" her on-screen father.
She wrote:
"Because it was so taboo, he could never make peace with himself.
He never allowed himself to have a genuine love.
Had he been allowed [...] he would have been the best husband ever and might still be alive."
If The Brady Bunch cast was competing for the title of least controversial, Florence
Henderson would have given the late Ann B. Davis a run for her money — at least until
she dropped some major truth bombs in her 2011 memoir.
As it turns out, Henderson wasn't quite as monogamous as her on-screen counterpart, and
admittedly got crabs after cheating on her husband with the former mayor of New York
City.
In her memoir Life Is Not a Stage, Henderson owned up to waking up with, quote, "little
black things" crawling all over her after having an affair with John Lindsay, who was
also married, in the 1960s.
She claimed she was lonely, knew it was wrong, but did it anyway.
Henderson wrote in her memoir:
"Guess I learned the hard way that crabs do not discriminate but cross over all socioeconomic
strata."
At least she had a sense of humor about it.
Mike Lookinland, who played the youngest Brady brother Bobby, fell into a similar trap as
many child stars who came before him.
Following his run on The Brady Bunch, the actor became embroiled in a life of drugs
and alcohol in his '20s, as he tried to live out the childhood he never had.
Huffington Post reported that in a 2013 episode of Oprah: Where Are They Now?, the star admitted
he thought alcohol was, quote, "the greatest thing in the world" the very first time he
had a drink.
Lookinland developed a problem shortly after, and it lasted for many years of his life.
He spoke of how hopeless he felt during that time:
"I never would have imagined in a million years that I could sit here today, sixteen
years sober, and say to you, 'I did it'"
Lookinland previously told People that he also did drugs for a while, but managed to
kick the habit when he married his college sweetheart and established a career designing
custom concrete countertops.
As of this video, the former actor has been sober for more than 20 years.
Christopher Knight, best known as middle brother Peter Brady, struggled to find his footing
following his TV fame.
When The Brady Bunch ended in 1974, the actor enrolled at UCLA.
However, he lasted less than a year before Hollywood drew him back, and he dropped out
to do The Brady Bunch Variety Hour.
According to a 1992 interview with People, the star was worried about finding work through
much of the '80s, so he turned to cocaine and pot.
Knight eventually did settle down, at least temporarily.
After taking a sales-rep job that was offered by his old high school friend, the celeb ended
up reprising his role for the 1990 spinoff The Bradys and played a coach in 1995's The
Brady Bunch Movie alongside some other smaller TV and film projects.
However, his main gig was as Visual Software Inc.'s general manager.
He told People:
"The only way to have salvation with this Brady Bunch thing is to leave show business."
At the time of this writing, Knight's last on-screen project was a small cameo as Dr.
Andrews in the long-running soap The Bold and the Beautiful in 2018.
He also played Grandpa Clarke in The Last Sharknado: It's About Time the year before,
because, honestly, how could you turn down being a part of Z-movie history with Tara
Reid ?
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