When Barry Williams entered the jungle for I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!, joining former supermodel Rachel Hunter, former Neighbours star Rebekah Elmaloglou and other big names, people around Australia found themselves singing, “Here’s the story of a lovely lady, who was bringing up three very lovely girls…”
In the iconic sitcom The Brady Bunch, which originally aired in the US from 1969 to 1974 and in endless repeats in Australia through the 1970s and beyond, Barry played Greg Brady, the oldest of the six Brady kids. They were a blended family, formed when Carol, who had three daughters (Marcia, Jan and Cindy), married Mike, who had three sons (Greg, Peter and Bobby).
All six of the actors who played the kids stayed in touch with their Brady roots, appearing over the decades in shows like The Brady Bunch Hour, The Brady Brides and A Very Brady Renovation.
But apart from that, what have they been up to for the last 50-odd years?
Barry Williams (Greg Brady)
Barry had done quite a bit of acting before The Brady Bunch, and after it was axed, he toured with musicals like Grease and West Side Story, and appeared in TV shows like General Hospital, where he played an English conman.
More recently, he starred in the telemovie Mega Piranha, and also competed in the US version of The Masked Singer, along with onscreen brothers Christopher Knight and Mike Lookinland, as the Mummies.
Barry tours with his band, Barry Williams and The Traveliers, which also includes his third wife, Tina Mahina. He has two children from previous relationships, Brandon and Samantha.
Maureen McCormick (Marcia Brady)
Post-Brady Bunch, Maureen scored guest roles on shows such as Happy Days and Fantasy Island. But, as she later revealed, she spent years addicted to cocaine, which wasn’t good for her career. She married actor Michael Cummings in 1985 and the couple had a daughter, Natalie.
In 2015 she appeared on the Australian version of I’m A Celebrity, and after that, went on the US version of Dancing With The Stars.
Christopher Knight (Peter Brady)
Like most of his on-screen siblings, Christopher has had some TV guest roles (he played a pastor in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation) and has been in a few telemovies (The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time).
He left TV for the computer industry, but in 2005, he returned in The Surreal Life, where he hit it off with America’s Next Top Model winner Adrianne Curry.
Christopher and Adrianne scored their own reality show, My Fair Brady, where they married. He’s now with his fourth wife, Cara Kokenes.
Eve Plumb (Jan Brady)
Eve broke away from her Brady good-girl image with a starring role in the 1976 telemovie Dawn: Portrait Of A Teenage Runaway.
That was followed by guest roles in everything from The Facts Of Life to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
For the past two decades, Eve has also been pursuing a career as an artist, focusing on still life. She has been married to her second husband, business and technology consultant Ken Pace, since 1995.
Mike Lookinland (Bobby Brady)
Straight after finishing up on The Brady Bunch, Mike went into shooting The Towering Inferno, alongside Paul Newman and Steve McQueen.
But his acting career went downhill from there, and he turned to alcohol. Mike worked for a while as a camera operator before getting out of the industry to make concrete countertops.
Now sober, he’s married to his college sweetheart Kelly Wermuth. They have two children: Scott, who played Mike in the 2000 telemovie Growing Up Brady, and Joe.
Susan Olsen (Cindy Brady)
Susan, who was eight years old when she was cast as Cindy, hasn’t had a lot of non-Brady-related TV gigs since the show ended, with just occasional guesties on series including The Young And The Restless.
She’s worked in graphic design and been active in animal welfare. In 2008, she competed in a series called Gimme My Reality Show, but didn’t get given one.
She’s been married and divorced twice, and has one son, Michael, born in 1997.
What about the Brady parents?
Robert Reed (Mike Brady)
A classically trained actor, Robert was not a huge fan of The Brady Bunch because he didn’t think it was realistic enough.
He was so unhappy with the plot of the final episode, involving hair tonic, that he ended up not appearing in it.
Robert, who was gay but chose to keep his sexuality private while he was on the show, went on to do more serious acting afterwards, and was nominated for three Emmys, including one for Roots.
He died from colon cancer in 1992, aged just 59.
Florence Henderson (Carol Brady)
Florence kept working for decades after The Brady Bunch, appearing in everything from The Love Boat to Murder She Wrote to 30 Rock, as well as competing on Dancing With The Stars in 2010 at the age of 76.
She died from heart failure in 2016. A mum of four children with her first husband, Ira Bernstein, three of her children followed her into showbiz, with Barbara appearing in three episodes of The Brady Bunch.
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
