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Susan Olsen opened up in a new interview about why she was “praying” for The Brady Bunch to end when it did
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Olsen played Cindy Brady, the youngest child in the Brady clan
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Olsen also remembered disliking The Brady Bunch Hour, a variety show that premiered in 1976, and getting in trouble with her TV mom, Florence Henderson
The Brady Bunch was idyllic for millions of kids watching at home, but less so for Susan Olsen, who played Cindy Brady.
Olsen, 63, opened up to Billy Corgan on the May 21 episode of his The Magnificent Others podcast. Corgan, 58, asked the star about her mindset when The Brady Bunch ended in 1974, after five seasons. She was 12 years old at the time.
“To some extent, I felt guilt,” she admitted. When Corgan questioned her, she explained, “Because I’d been praying for the show to be canceled.” Part of the problem was that she was “going through those awkward years.”
“It’s bad enough to go through your awkward stage and to feel really ugly, but doing it on national TV is not something I wanted to do,” she said.
CBS/Getty Images
Susan Olsen as Cindy on ‘The Brady Bunch’ in 1971
During the series run, the six Brady kids — Olsen plus Maureen McCormick, Eve Plumb, Barry Williams, Christopher Knight and Mike Lookinland — released multiple albums of music and performed in concerts. But when the show ended, Olsen said, Williams wanted to release music as a solo artist and McCormick “wasn’t into it.” Knight “quit before the show was canceled” because “he hated it,” she explained.
So Olsen, Lookinland and Plumb were going to keep going as “the Brady three.” “We got this whole act done, and we had costumes, and I hated it. I thought it was horrible,” Olsen remembered. But their booking agent never booked them a single show, and though Olsen doesn’t know why, she was pleased.
Olsen also had similarly mixed feelings about The Brady Bunch Hour, a variety show that saw almost the entire original cast return. It ran from 1976 to 1977. Plumb, now 67, didn’t come back because she was filming the TV movie Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway and its sequel, and was replaced by Geri Reischl, dubbed “Fake Jan” by fans. Olsen said that it “bothered” Plumb that she couldn’t return.
Olsen remembered that “the one time that Florence Henderson gave me a look that I’m still shocked that I didn’t turn into a pillar of salt” was thanks to a comment she made about Plumb backstage.
“They were all talking about Eve and what she’s doing, like this and that. And I said, ‘Don’t we all wish we had something better to do than this show?’ ” Olsen remembered.
ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty
The cast of ‘The Brady Bunch Variety Hour.’ From left” Mike Lookinland, Christopher Knight, Barry Williams, Robert Reed, Florence Henderson, Ann B. Davis, Maureen McCormick, Geri Reischl and Susan Olsen in 1977
Olsen only adopted a different view of her Brady years as she got older. As a kid, she was “sheltered” from fame, because people in Los Angeles “pretend like they don’t care” that you’re famous, she said.
“We didn’t really know that we were that popular until we went out on the road. And I never had a sense of it being cool until years later,” she said. “Because to me it wasn’t cool.” When she returned to acting at age 18, The Brady Bunch “did not seem to be a good thing on the résumé.” She turned down Love Boat, Fantasy Island and similar shows.
“I first became really proud of the show when I found out that child psychiatrists were using it,” Olsen said of The Brady Bunch. “They were using episodes for kids that were coming from horrible abuse. And I would’ve thought, well, why would they want to see this perfectly good family? They do. They want to see somebody being happy. They want to see that there’s hope.”
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In her 20s, she realized “the beauty of the show” is that it was written from a child’s perspective as a “fantasy” of what “kids want.” When Cindy’s doll goes missing, the whole house is “up in arms” until she’s located.
And as for her child acting days, Olsen said she didn’t have any of the “issues” other famous stars have. “I was born strange, and I wanted a strange life,” she said. “I was creative. It seemed like the right thing for me.”
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