Mike Brady Michael Paul "
Mike"
Brady (bottom center in picture above), portrayed by
Robert Reed in the TV show and
Gary Cole in films, is the male head of the Brady household. In episode #4 of
The Bradys, "Hat in the Ring", when Mike is sworn in as City Councilman, his full name is given as
Michael Thomas Brady. Mike, a
widowed architect, brought three sons to his marriage with
Carol Martin and became the stepfather to her three daughters. He was named "Father of the Year" by a local newspaper after his stepdaughter
Marcia submitted an essay in his honor. The character's parents were sometimes mentioned but never seen (unless depicted without identification at the wedding in the pilot), but his paternal grandfather, Judge Hank Brady (Robert Reed in a dual role), appears in one episode. Shortly into the fourth season, Mike Brady grew his hair into a longer, curly style. While men getting a
perm or growing an
Afro was in style at the time, Mike's perm happened by accident: as revealed by Florence Henderson decades later, Robert Reed had naturally curly hair and had been using chemicals to keep it straightened. Only when the cast flew to
Hawaii did they discover its curliness, due to the
humidity of the
tropical climate there. Mike Brady became associated with a perm in all other iterations of the Brady family in the decades since. As Gary Cole's hair was not as naturally curly (as seen in his other roles such as
Bill Lumbergh in
Office Space), he wore a wig when portraying Mike. Mike had a firm personal integrity (for example, he refuses to participate in a
commercial if it means saying that an inferior product is the best) coupled with a strong sense of ethics. Mike enjoyed fishing and camping. The writers imply that Mike Brady is a very highly qualified and well-respected architect. His "failures" tended to be successes. For instance, in
A Very Brady Christmas, contractor Ted Roberts (who is looking to save money on his building project) fires Mike when he refuses to cut corners and take out important safety provisions. Mike, however, is later proven right when the structure begins to crumble (trapping two security guards, and later Mike, inside). In the episode "How to Succeed in Business?" Mike acknowledges that he has lost jobs. This is to reassure his son
Peter that failure and getting fired are a part of life. Mike was one of the staff architects with the firm where he worked; its name was never mentioned in the series. Mr. Ed Phillips was his boss until the final episodes of the series, when it was Harry Matthews. By the time
A Very Brady Christmas and
The Bradys aired, Mike was the senior partner at the firm. Both
Gene Hackman and
Jeffrey Hunter were considered for the role of Mike Brady. Hackman was Sherwood Schwartz's first choice, but he was rejected by
Paramount for not having enough experience. Jeffrey Hunter wanted to play Mike Brady, but Schwartz felt Hunter was too attractive to play a down-to-earth architect. In 2004,
TV Guide ranked Mike Brady number 14 on its 50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time list.
Carol Brady Caroline Ann "
Carol"
Brady – f/k/a
Caroline Ann "
Carol"
Martin,
née Caroline Ann Tyler (top center), portrayed by
Florence Henderson in the TV series and
Shelley Long in movies, is the wife of Mike Brady. At the beginning of the pilot, her last name is
Martin from her first marriage, during which she had had three daughters. She gains three stepsons when she marries Mike Brady. Carol enjoys singing in the church choir, and with her daughter Marcia in the high school Family Frolic Talent Show. In the episode "A Fistful of Reasons", in which Cindy is bullied because of her lisp, Carol confesses that she too overcame a lisp while growing up in
Swampscott, Massachusetts. Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Tyler (
J. Pat O'Malley and
Joan Tompkins), are depicted only in the pilot "The Honeymoon", and her maternal grandmother, Connie Hutchins (Florence Henderson), appears in "You're Never Too Old". She has an unseen brother, Jack, and sister-in-law, Pauline (the parents of Cousin Oliver). During the original
Brady Bunch series, Carol is a stay-at-home mother. In the sequels, she becomes a real estate agent, converting the boys' old room into her
home office. How Carol's previous marriage ended (i.e., due to a death or divorce) is not mentioned. Creator and executive producer
Sherwood Schwartz had originally intended for Carol to be a divorcee, but ABC refused to allow the fate of her first marriage to be revealed on the show. Sherwood Schwartz later wished to use her divorce to his advantage, and wanted to use Carol's previous husband as a mechanism to replace Robert Reed on the show should the show enter its sixth season. The show was canceled before Schwartz could execute his plan. In 2009, Carol was included in
Yahoo!'s Top 10 TV Moms from Six Decades of Television for the time period 1969–1974. She was also listed in the Top 5 Classic TV Moms by
Film.com.
Greg Brady Gregory "
Greg"
Brady (top right), portrayed by
Barry Williams in the TV show,
Christopher Daniel Barnes in theatrical films, and
Chad Doreck in the TV movie, is the oldest Brady son. Greg is a Westdale High School student who plays football, plays guitar, surfs, and aspires to be a singer. Greg is portrayed as self-confident and brassy at times, and generally acts as leader and spokesman for the other kids. Being the oldest of the Brady children, Greg is usually the one who devises their plans. As the series went on, Greg became somewhat of a "ladies' man" at school. Also as the character got older, Greg often attempted to disassociate himself from the younger siblings, eventually getting his own room in the
attic. Despite this, Greg always sticks up for his younger siblings and helps them out whenever he can. He also frequently shows an ample sense of fair play, as when he refused to go along with a classmate's plan to spread a false rumor about Marcia at school. However, he has been known to cross the lines when he believes the situation warrants it (specifically, when he created a phony playbook to thwart a cheating quarterback from a rival high school). He has also been known to use the line, "Something suddenly came up", to break off a date (without giving a further explanation) so he can go out with a more desirable girl. Greg's dream of becoming a singer almost comes true when he was handpicked by record producers to be a pop singer under the stage name "Johnny Bravo"; however, he walked away from a potentially lucrative deal when he found out his recordings were being electronically "sweetened" and that the producers were more interested in the visual product than substance. "They didn't want me; they wanted a robot", he said about the incident. Greg eventually became an
obstetrician (as mentioned in
A Very Brady Christmas). He and his wife Nora, a
nurse, have a son named Kevin. Greg is the only one of the children to appear in every episode of the original series.
Marcia Brady Marcia Brady, née
Marcia Martin, later
Marcia Brady-Logan (top left), portrayed by
Maureen McCormick in the original TV show,
The Brady Girls Get Married,
The Brady Brides and
A Very Brady Christmas,
Leah Ayres in
The Bradys,
Christine Taylor in theatrical films and
Autumn Reeser in the TV movie, is the eldest Brady daughter. Marcia is portrayed as a beautiful, mature, and popular girl at Westdale High School and acts as Greg's second-in-command for the other children. Her popularity is an ongoing source of contempt for her younger sister Jan. She is a great fan of TV-star idols
Desi Arnaz Jr. and
Davy Jones (both actors, portraying themselves, appeared in their own episode). Despite Marcia's reputation, she has her share of problems, such as unrequited crushes, insecurity over having
braces, and insecurity over receiving a swollen nose from a stray football thrown by Peter and thereby acquiring the catchphrase "Oh, my nose!" She has a fragile ego that sometimes goes amok, as shown in "Juliet is the Sun", when after being cast in the lead female role in her school's production of
Romeo and Juliet she becomes so hard to get along with that she is dismissed from the role. In
The Brady Girls Get Married, Marcia had graduated from college, became a fashion designer, and marries Wallace "Wally" Logan. However, by the time
A Very Brady Christmas aired, she was a stay-at-home mother (raising two children, daughter Jessica and son Michael "Mickey"). She was still unemployed at the beginning of
The Bradys, and at this point her ego began to take such a beating she briefly turned to alcohol for solace. By the end of the series, Marcia and her husband, Wally (a toy salesman who was frequently out of work, due to either layoffs or getting fired), join their sisters-in-law (Nora and Tracy) to open a catering business.
Peter Brady Peter Brady (right center), portrayed by
Christopher Knight in the TV show, Paul Sutera in theatrical films, and
Blake Foster in the TV movie, is the middle Brady son. Peter often thinks badly of himself, such as believing he has no personality in the episode "The Personality Kid". The clumsiest of the bunch, he sometimes gets overexcited and acts before thinking. Nevertheless, he is a fun-loving boy whom girls adored later in the original series. He has a non-related lookalike named Arthur Owens (also played by
Christopher Knight), who is shown in the episode "Two Petes in a Pod". Peter is also the only one in the family with brown eyes—all the others had blue or green eyes. Peter later joined the military for career guidance, as seen in
The Brady Girls Get Married. In later sequels, he is an administrative assistant (at one point, working under his fiancée, Valerie Thomas; they later end their engagement), and still later, a business partner with Bobby. Peter was the only Brady child to not have a spouse or significant other when
The Bradys was cancelled.
Jan Brady Janet "
Jan"
Brady, née
Janet "
Jan"
Martin, later
Janet "
Jan"
Brady-Covington (left center), portrayed by
Eve Plumb in the TV series as well as
The Brady Girls Get Married,
The Brady Brides,
A Very Brady Christmas and
The Bradys,
Geri Reischl in
The Brady Bunch Hour variety show,
Jennifer Elise Cox in the two theatrical films, and
Ashley Drane in the TV movie, is the middle Brady daughter, and many of her storylines often involve Jan being jealous of her more popular older sister, Marcia, or Jan's awkward position as the middle child. In addition, Jan is also insecure about having
freckles and wearing
glasses, embarrassed about the fact she does not have a boyfriend (later in the series she invents a fictional boyfriend named "George Glass" in an effort to save her reputation), and concerned about her future appearance. In January 2015, this became the subject of an internet
meme. A typical plot line surrounding Jan would feature her attempting to carve out her niche in the family, or make a name for herself at school. In the episode "Her Sister's Shadow", in exasperation at constantly being overshadowed by her older sister Marcia, she utters the now famous
catch phrase, "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!". This line would later be parodied in both
The Brady Bunch Movie and used in a recurring
Saturday Night Live sketch, as well as in the title of the
Fanboy & Chum Chum episode "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia". As a young teen, Jan had a striking resemblance to her great-aunt Jenny (played by
Imogene Coca) in her younger days. Jan is also occasionally
absent-minded, once losing the tube containing her father's architectural plans while visiting
Kings Island amusement park. In her later high school years, Jan found she had a talent for painting (as does Eve Plumb), which likely led to her career choice as an architect, following in her adopted father's footsteps (as shown in later reunion films). In
The Brady Girls Get Married, Jan marries Phillip Covington III. The two met in college; he was her professor. The Covingtons briefly separate in
A Very Brady Christmas, but they reconcile. However, they are unable to conceive their own children and in
The Bradys adopt a Korean girl named Patty. Child actress Debi Storm (who later appeared on
The Brady Bunch episode "My Fair Opponent" as Molly) was producer Sherwood Schwartz's original choice to play Jan Brady in the original series, until he decided to cast all blondes for the roles of the three daughters. Cox said in a 2015 interview that one of the reasons she auditioned for
The Brady Bunch Movie was that she was a fan of the original series, and that she used
method acting during the film. Film critic
Roger Ebert praised the character in
The Brady Bunch Movie, saying that "a lot of the humor in the movie comes from the burning jealousy Jan feels for her popular older sister, Marcia".
Bobby Brady Robert "
Bobby"
Brady (bottom right), portrayed by
Mike Lookinland in the TV show,
Jesse Soffer (credited as Jesse Lee) in the theatrical films, and
Max Morrow in the TV movie, is the youngest Brady son. The clever and often overlooked youngest boy, Bobby was often portrayed as a whimsical dreamer, fantasizing about having various adventurous lifestyles, such as being a
race car driver, a
cowboy, and an
astronaut. On one occasion, one of his fantasies came true when he got to play football with
Joe Namath. On another occasion, Bobby became a professional race car driver, which led to a crash and Bobby's paralysis on
The Bradys. Bobby is going through rehabilitative therapy when he marries his girlfriend, Tracy Wagner (
Martha Quinn). Bobby—who had dropped out of business school to pursue his dream of racing cars—resumes his originally intended career path, joining Peter in a business venture.
Cindy Brady Cynthia "
Cindy"
Brady, née
Cynthia "
Cindy"
Martin (bottom left), portrayed by
Susan Olsen in the TV show,
The Brady Bunch Hour,
The Brady Girls Get Married and
The Bradys,
Jennifer Runyon in
A Very Brady Christmas,
Olivia Hack in the theatrical films and
Sofia Vassilieva in the 2002 TV movie, is the youngest Brady daughter. She was portrayed as a naive, but occasionally precocious little girl, who was most often seen wearing her hair in corkscrew curls or
braids and had a pronounced
lisp. She frequently liked to snoop and share secrets she had found out. In one episode, the family had to help her correct her habit of tattling. Cindy Brady also had various failed attempts at fame, such as attempting to break a world record for
teeter-tottering, appearing on a game show (on which she suffered from
stage fright and had a
catatonic attack), and trying to become "the new
Shirley Temple". However, she does play a pivotal role in helping Bobby meet boyhood idol
Joe Namath by signing Bobby's name to a letter stating he is "really, really sick". On
The Bradys, Cindy became a
disc jockey (much like
Susan Olsen herself did). At the radio station, she becomes romantically involved with her boss, Gary Greenberg (
Ken Michelman), a Jewish widower who is more than 15 years her senior and has two children. The relationship did not have time to develop before
The Bradys was cancelled. Throughout her time playing Cindy, Susan Olsen herself regarded the character to be too stupid. However, she could adapt, with her mother encouraging her that Cindy Brady was intended to be cute.
Alice Nelson Alice Nelson (center) is the
housekeeper to the Brady family. She was portrayed by
Ann B. Davis. Alice grew up in the same neighborhood as the Bradys, graduating from Westdale High School, the school Greg and Marcia attended in the series. Alice was the housekeeper to Mike Brady, his previous wife (who died before the series started), and their three boys. Alice stayed on, to be the housekeeper for not only his boys, but for his new wife Carol and her three daughters. Alice was generally impartial toward the children, although she presented Jan with a locket at one point, "from one middle sister to another". Alice was best known for telling jokes (often
self-deprecating, and usually interspersed with drier humor than the rest of the Brady clan), which were almost invariably met with "Oh, Alice!" responses. Alice was also known for her sky-blue housekeeping uniform, which she almost always wore. She also joined in the children's games (including playing
basketball), and went along with the family on vacations. Physical activity would sometimes cause Alice to throw her back out, making her immobile for a short period of time. Alice had an identical cousin, Emma (also played by Davis), who was a retired
master sergeant in the
Women's Army Corps. Emma once filled in for Alice when Alice traveled out of town. Alice quit her job at one point when she felt the children no longer trusted her, becoming a waitress at a local restaurant. Her replacement Kay (
Mary Treen), who did her work faithfully, but never tried to become close with the Bradys, told the kids where to find her ("The Golden Spoon at Fourth and Oak"), and they begged Alice to come back. For most of the series, Alice dated Sam Franklin (
Allan Melvin), who ran the local
butcher shop. In the final season, Alice and Sam were engaged. Alice and Sam have won awards in
Charleston dancing and
bowling, which was parodied in
The Brady Bunch Movie, in which Sam gave Alice a new bowling ball instead of an engagement ring. They were married some time after
The Brady Bunch left the air in 1974 and before
The Brady Girls Get Married. In the 1990s parody movies, Alice was played by actress
Henriette Mantel, while Tannis Burnett played her in the TV movie. In the first film, Davis makes a
cameo as a truck driver whose
CB handle is "Schultzy". Davis first became popular in the 1950s, playing a character named Schultzy on
The Bob Cummings Show. The role of Alice was originally to have been played by Monty Margetts, but at the last minute the role was recast because producers of the show changed their mind about casting
Joyce Bulifant, who was originally cast as Carol Brady, and instead replaced her with Florence Henderson. The producers felt a more comedic, zany housekeeper would balance Henderson's soft-spoken, calm presence. ==Notable recurring characters==