Florence Henderson may have felt like a mother at some point to everyone with a television over the past 40 years.
‘The Brady Bunch’ star who became the epitome of the sitcom mom playing Carol Brady from 1969 until 1974, and in multiple specials after that, died Thursday at a Los Angeles hospital of heart failure. She was 82.
Henderson was surrounded by family and friends when she passed, her manager, Kayla Pressman, told the Los Angeles Times. Pressman also told reporters that the actress had not been ill, so her death came as a shock.
Her icon status cemented forever by ‘The Brady Bunch,’ Henderson was a frequent fixture on TV long after the classic series ended, at one point hosting her own talk show and, most recently in 2013, ‘Who’s Cooking With Florence Henderson.’
She competed on the 11th season of ‘Dancing With the Stars’ in 2010 and appeared on the show several times this season-as well as on part one of this season’s finale just on Monday-to support contestant Maureen McCormick, who played the quintessential TV daughter Marcia Brady.
“Florence Henderson was a dear friend for so very many years & in my #RIPFlorence,” McCormick tweeted Thursday night.
Though in hindsight the role of the perennially perky and patient Mrs. Brady turned out to be the role of a lifetime, Henderson reminisced last year in an interview with NPR about not initially wanting to take the job.
“Well, it was 1969, and I thought, wow. You know, I really didn’t want to do a TV series. You know, I had my own act, and I was performing in Vegas and doing all of these exciting things,” she recalled. “And my manager said, well, just go down and meet them. I thought it was great, and it was fun. But I thought, well, I guess it didn’t sell. And then, I get the lead in the movie Song Of Norway. And I’m over in Norway filming, and I get a message that The Brady Bunch sold. And so they started the show without me. They did six episodes without me. And then I filled in when I got back to the states.”
Indeed, Joyce Bulifant, later of the ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show,’ was the first Mrs. Brady.
And while Song of Norway came and went, The Brady Bunch and its many Carolisms are forever.
