Here’s the story of a lovely lady — who almost didn’t survive the first day on set.
Susan Olsen, who played Cindy Brady — the youngest of the Brady children on “The Brady Bunch” — recently revealed some of the darker memories of filming the sitcom.
“I got injured. I almost died,” the actress, 63, recounted while on “The Real Brady Bros” podcast with her former co-stars Christopher Knight and Barry Williams.
“On the Culver lot, they were shooting something — I would assume, in the girl’s bedroom — and I was getting body makeup on my legs. Was standing on a makeup chair and something from the catwalk, where they keep all the lights and everything, fell,” she explained. “It hit the makeup man first, [bounced] off the body makeup woman, and hit me in the face.”
Olsen was left pretty badly hurt, and her injuries could be seen during the wedding between her onscreen mother Carol (Florence Henderson) and Mike (Robert Reed).
“You can tell, if you look at the ceremony and you see the three girls on one side, if you were to zoom in really tight, you can see my face is quite swollen,” she told Knight and Williams, 70, who played Peter and Greg, respectively. “I look different. You can even see it in some of the early publicity shots. You can tell my face is a little swollen.”
Only Henderson, who died of heart failure in 2016 at age 82, comforted her at the time. Everyone else on set told her she would be fine.
“In fact, I don’t just wanna cry,” she recalled. “I want to sob. I’m just gonna let go and forget all my pride and just sob because this hurts.”
She decided to cut out of work early and head to the doctor immediately.
“The saddest news is that we didn’t sue Paramount, because I would have made more off of that than the show,” Olsen added, laughing. “But I came to work the next day. Florence was the first one to see me. She’s like, ‘You make sure everybody sees her.’ And my mom was like, ‘Oh, yes, I will.’ Because everybody was trying to say, ‘It didn’t really hit her. She’s fine.’”
As a young star, she wasn’t opposed to some of the after effects of the bruising.
“My eyes were black. I mean, I had two black eyes. My nose was swollen. My face was swollen,” explained Olsen. “I remember loving it, because I looked like I was in a horror film. And then everybody knew, yes, I had gotten hurt, and I had gotten hurt very badly.”
The show called in reinforcements to make sure Olsen would be ready to shoot. Hal King, Lucille Ball’s personal makeup artist on “I Love Lucy,” came to set and helped cover the bruises on the “Blending Christmas” alum.
“I loved Lucy. She was my idol. And I was so thrilled to have him. And every day, my bruises would be a different color, and I’d say, ‘My bruises are purple today, Hal,’” Olsen expressed.
“Didn’t know anything about that,” Knight, 67, replied.
“The Brady Bunch” aired for five seasons, from 1969 to 1974. The iconic series followed the lives of Mike, who has three sons, marrying Carol, who has three daughters, and blending their families.
“The Brady Bunch Hour” aired in 1976 and was a variety show featuring the original cast. In 1995, “The Brady Bunch Movie” was released and parodied the beloved sitcom.
Olsen was set to star in a reboot, but claimed it fell apart due to her political stance.
The actress alleged on the “Walk Away Campaign” podcast that the revival was halted due to her backing President Donal Trump and her commentary on controversial issues such as COVID-19 vaccines, and the LGBTQ+ community.
Olsen wanted Cindy to be portrayed as a right-wing podcaster. She offered to take a class in “political correctness,” but claimed CBS Studios still wouldn’t budge.
“I am what I was going to portray, so what kind of show would this be if I can’t say anything controversial?” Olsen said on the 2014 episode. “I did have a phone call with my [TV] siblings and my agent. Everybody was saying, ‘we’re sorry, but they just won’t budge. They just will not have you in this.’ I was like wow, I’ve been canceled. A role that I’ve played for over 50 years, I can’t play it now because I’m too dangerous. I was like ‘well, okay guys, good luck, I hope you can sell it.’”
The star added that Greg Brady would have been “a Reagan Republican,” Jan Brady would be liberal, and Cindy would be a libertarian podcaster just like Olsen is in real life.
“I thought it was very important that Cindy was a libertarian, and also that she’s a little crazy,” Olsen continued.
“She does some animal rescue, like me. I was so hoping to be the first woman on television since my first female hero, Donna Douglas from ‘The Beverly Hillbillies,’ to wear an opossum on my shoulder.”
