Susan Olsen, the actress who played youngest sister Cindy on “The Brady Bunch,” has spilled the beans on some long-held secrets behind the scenes of the family-friendly sitcom, including juicy details on cast hookups and fights.
The 53-year-old sat down with news.com.au and revealed that all of the "Brady Bunch" kids “hooked up” with each other at one time or another during filming. Olsen herself recalls kissing Mike Lookinland, who played Bobby Brady, in the doghouse when they were both nine.
And although Maureen McCormick and Barry Williams, who played the eldest Brady children Marcia and Greg, were always rumored to be in love, Olsen declared that Williams actually had eyes for Florence Henderson, who played his mother Mrs. Brady. Henderson, however, kept their relationship strictly platonic.
All of his co-stars knew that Mr. Brady actor Robert Reed was gay, even despite his efforts to conceal it from them.
“He never ever had any intentions of coming out of the closet and I think he might have been mortified to know that we knew,” Olsen told news.com.au.
And yes, Marcia and Jan actresses McCormick and Eve Plumb did not get along on or off screen.
“I understand both sides of the story but I’m a little more inclined to be sympathetic to Eve,” Olsen said. “I know that’s horrible to say because Maureen is Australia’s little darling now.”
Olsen also said that the child actors and actresses earned very little money for their roles and were even required to pay for their parking during the first season of the show.
Perhaps the biggest bombshell in Olsen's interview was her confession that she and her ex-husband grew marijuana hydroponically for a while.
"I have never really enjoyed smoking it, it makes me very paranoid. But it was my husband’s idea," she said. "It was really fascinating and I’ve always been into ‘gardening’ and it’s such a complicated, wonderfully fascinating plant."
Olsen’s “revelations” and confirmations of previous rumors led to some social media buzz. One Twitter user was not impressed:
The “Brady Bunch” actors’ and actresses’ accounts of the feuds and scandals that occurred during their show contrast sharply with the sitcom’s projected image of a squeaky-clean, all-American blended household in 1960s and '70s that espoused
traditional family values, according to the Archive of American Television.
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