‘Brady Bunch’ cast pays tribute to Florence Henderson on ‘Today’ show

Four surviving cast members of the iconic family comedy series “The Brady Bunch” remembered the show’s late star Florence Henderson Tuesday, six months after her death.

“She was great humanity,” Christopher Knight, 59, told Matt Lauer on NBC’s “Today.” Knight, who played Peter Brady, the middle son of six stepsiblings, recalled that, “Everyone she met felt better about themselves and about the world around them after having spent a moment with Florence,” who portrayed sensible and loving matriarch Carol Brady. Henderson died Nov. 25 at age 82.

“She was a mentor, a friend,” said Barry Williams, 62, who played eldest son Greg on the continually syndicated ABC show, which ran from 1969 to 1974. “We learned from her; we learned how to interact with the public. She was so gracious with her fans.”

He added that Henderson “loved to make people laugh. You probably know that if you’ve been in her space. She would do anything — she would fall down, she would say off-color jokes. She made people smile.”

Mike Lookinland, 56, who played youngest boy Bobby, recalled how, “A movie set or a TV-show [set] can be tense. . . . You get behind schedule and that’s not OK.” But Henderson, he said, “could light up the room and lighten the mood, and she just did it naturally, and we all benefited from that.”

The three actors along with Susan Olsen, 55, who played youngest daughter Cindy, marveled at the endurance of the show, which had not been a darling of TV critics. Olsen suggested that, “What you have on ‘The Brady Bunch’ is . . . a family where the parents and the kids respect each other,” maintaining that today, “You really don’t have shows where you can watch it with your kid and maybe pick up some parenting tips.”

“The Brady Bunch” additionally starred Maureen McCormick as eldest daughter Marcia, Eve Plumb as middle girl Jan, the late Robert Reed as architect dad Mike and the late Ann B. Davis as housekeeper Alice Nelson. Created by Sherwood Schwartz (“Gilligan’s Island”), the series spawned a variety show, sequel sitcom, sequel drama, Saturday-morning cartoon, TV movie and two feature films that lovingly parodied the show.

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