List of The Brady Bunch characters
The following is a list and description of the primary characters from the classic American television series The Brady Bunch, that was broadcast from September 1969 to March 1974. The characters also appeared in all subsequent reunions, remakes, and theatrical/TV films.
Cast
Brady family
! colspan="11" |Supporting cast members
Main characters
Mike Brady
Michael Paul "Mike" Brady, 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, but his paternal grandfather, Judge Hank Brady, 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, he wore a wig when portraying Mike.
Mike had a firm personal integrity 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 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. 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, 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, are depicted only in the pilot "The Honeymoon", and her maternal grandmother, Connie Hutchins, appears in "You're Never Too Old". She has an unseen brother, Jack, and sister-in-law, Pauline.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 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, 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. He has also been known to use the line, "Something suddenly came up", to break off a date 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. 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, 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. 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. 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, join their sisters-in-law to open a catering business.
Peter Brady
Peter Brady, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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 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, which likely led to her career choice as an architect, following in her adopted father's footsteps.
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 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".