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Main Characters
» Carol Brady :: Carol Brady portrayed by Florence Henderson is the wife of Mike Brady. At the beginning of the series, she is Carol Martin (née Carol Ann Tyler). She had three daughters from a previous marriage before marrying Mike. She gets three stepsons from Mike. The television show does not mention how Carol's previous marriage ended, though Sherwood Schwartz confirmed that she was divorced outside the show. Carol enjoys singing in the church choir, and with her daughter Marcia in the high school Family Frolic Talent Show. Carol's look-alike grandmother is named Connie Hutchins, who is possibly her Mother's Mother.
» Mike Brady :: Michael Paul "Mike" Brady portrayed by Robert Reed is the head of the Brady household. He has three sons of his own. Mike, a widowed architect, became the stepfather of Carol Brady's three daughters when he married Carol Martin. Mike enjoyed fishing and camping. Mike was once approached by cosmetics maven Bebe Gallini (Abbe Lane) to design her new powder-puff shaped factory. In the middle of the show's run, Mike got a perm and had really curly hair instead of his prior short straight hair. He was named "Father of the Year" by a local newspaper after his daughter Marcia submitted an essay. Mike's look-alike Grandfather Brady is a retired judge. Mike also seems obsessed with personal purity (I.e. he refuses to participate in a comercial if it means saying a product is the best that he believes isn't.)
» Marcia Brady :: Marcia Brady is the eldest Brady daughter and was portrayed by Maureen McCormick. Marcia is portrayed as a mature, attractive, and popular girl at Westdale High School. 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, having braces, and getting a swollen nose from being hit in the face with a football by Peter.
» Greg Brady :: Gregory "Greg" Brady is the eldest Brady son and was played by Barry Williams. 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 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 "kids," 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. His 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 only wanted me because I fit the suit.", he said about the event. Greg eventually became an obstetrician (as mentioned in A Very Brady Christmas) .
» Jan Brady :: Jan Brady is the middle Brady daughter and was portrayed by Eve Plumb. Story lines which involve Jan often feature her jealousy of her seemingly more popular older sister Marcia, or her awkward position as the middle child. In addition, Jan is insecure about having freckles and wearing glasses, embarrassed about the fact she does not have a boyfriend (even inventing a fictional one named "George Glass"), and concerned about her future appearance. 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. Once, in exasperation at her supposed inferiority to Marcia, she uttered the now famous catch phrase, "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" which was later parodied in the Brady Bunch movie and in a recurring Saturday Night Live sketch. As a young teen, Jan had a striking resemblance to her Great-Aunt Jenny (played by Imogene Coca) in her younger days. Jan is also occasionally absent-minded, once losing the tube containing her father's architectural plans while visiting King's Island amusement park in Cincinnati. In her later high school years, Jan found she had a talent for painting, which likely led to her career choice as an architect (as shown in later reunion films).
» Peter Brady :: Astro was designed by Iwao Takamoto, and originally voiced by Don Messick. In the Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law episode "Back to the Present", Astro was voiced by Wally Wingert. Astro was found by Elroy in the fourth Jetsons episode, "The Coming of Astro". When Elroy, Jane and Judy proposed keeping the dog to George, he was against it. To try and stay out of the "doghouse" with his family, he got an electronic dog. The electronic dog was supposed to be the new hairless, non-eating, protect your house, way to go. When a cat burglar tried to rob the Jetsons, the electronic dog attacked him (which he did to anyone wearing a mask). Elroy tried waking Astro to get him to stop the burglar as a way to prove himself, but Astro turned out to be more interested in hiding in fear. However, when trying to escape, the cat burglar put the mask on George. The electronic dog then proceeded to chase after George. It was Astro (who was trying to run from the cat burglar) that inevitably caught the criminal (by accident) by crashing into him. This prompted George to decide that the electronic dog was not the way to go. They gave the electronic dog to the police and kept Astro as part of their family.
» Cindy Brady :: Cynthia "Cindy" Brady is the youngest Brady daughter and was played by Susan Olsen. She was portrayed as a naive, but occasionally precocious little girl, who was most often seen wearing her hair in pigtails and had a pronounced lisp. She frequently liked to snoop and share secrets she had found out. In one episode, the family had to help her correct her habit of tattletaling. She also had various failed attempts at fame - such as attempting to break a world record for teeter-tottering, appearing on a game show (on which she suffered from stage fright), and trying to become "the next Shirley Temple". Cindy eventually became a deejay, much like Susan Olsen herself did.
» Bobby Brady :: Robert "Bobby" Brady is the youngest Brady son and was played by Mike Lookinland. Bobby was the "safety monitor" at his school and occasionally gets the other siblings into trouble. The precocious and often overlooked youngest boy, Bobby was often portrayed as a whimsical dreamer, fantasizing about having various adventurous lifestyles, such as being a race car driver, a cowboy, and an astronaut. On one occasion, one of his fantasies came true when he got to play football with Joe Namath. On another occasion, Bobby became a professional race car driver, which led to a crash and Bobby's paralysis on the last Brady television series, The Bradys.
» Alice Nelson :: Alice Nelson best known to television viewers as simply Alice, was the housekeeper to the Brady family. She was portrayed by Ann B. Davis.
Alice grew up in the same neighborhood as the Bradys, graduating from Westdale High School, the school Greg and Marcia attended in the series. (She kept a trophy she won in school, but notably rubbed the year off so it was unreadable.) Alice was the housekeeper to Mike Brady, his previous wife (who died before the series started), and their three boys. Alice stayed on, to be the housekeeper for not only his boys, but for his new wife, Carol, and her three daughters. Alice was generally impartial (although she presented Jan with a locket at one point, "from one middle sister to another).
Alice was best known for telling funny jokes (often self-deprecating and usually interspersed with drier humor than the rest of the Brady clan), which were almost invariably met with multiple "Oh, Alice!" responses. Alice was also known for her sky blue housekeeping uniform, which she almost always wore. She also joined in the children's games (including playing basketball), and went along with the family on vacations.
In an apparent running gag with the character, the slightest physical activity would often cause Alice to throw her back out, making her immobile for a short period of time.
Alice had a lookalike cousin Emma (also played by Davis), who was a retired master sergeant in the Women's Army Corps. Emma once filled in for Alice when Alice traveled out of town. Alice quit her job at one point, when she felt the children no longer trusted her, becoming a waitress at a local restaurant. Her replacement Kay (who did her work faithfully, but never tried to become close with the Bradys) told the kids where to find her ("The Golden Spoon at Fourth and Oak..."), and they begged Alice to come back.
For most of the series, Alice dated Sam Franklin (Allan Melvin), who ran the local butcher shop. In the final season, Alice and Sam were engaged. Alice and Sam have also won awards in Charleston dancing and bowling, which was parodied in the Brady Bunch Movie, in which Sam gave Alice a new bowling ball instead of an engagement ring. They were married somewhere between when The Brady Bunch left the air in 1974 and the beginning of the first of the reunion specials in 1981.
In the 1990s parody movies, Alice was played by actress Henriette Mantel. In the first film, Davis makes a cameo as a truck driver whose CB handle is "Schultzy" (Davis first became popular in the 1950s playing a character named Schultzy on The Bob Cummings Show).
Her last name of Nelson was only mentioned three times: once by a postman delivering a letter informing her that she had won a prize; once by Mike Brady, reading from a trophy of Alice's; and once in the episode "The Elopement", where Carol introduces Alice Nelson by her full name to another maid. She was also mentioned a fourth time. Carol & Mike were talking to some business partners in their living room and Alice walked over so Mike introduced her to them by her full name. (It happens in the last ten minutes of the episode and was where the Brady's were talking business with Spanish partners).
The role of Alice was originally to have been played by Monty Margetts, but at the last minute, the role was recast. This was due to the fact that producers of the show changed their mind about casting Joyce Bulifant, who was originally cast as Carol Brady, and instead replaced her with Florence Henderson took on the role; producers felt a more comedic, zany housekeeper was called for, to balance Henderson's soft-spoken, low key presence.
Other Characters
» Sam Franklin
» Oliver Martin
» Tiger
» Fluffy
» Felix Brown
» George Glass
» Buddy Hinton
» Jennifer Nichols
» Mr. Phillips
» Rachel
» Doug Simpson
» Clark Tyson
» Mark Millard
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