‘Love to You Bradys’ exposes troubled set

Susan Olsen, best known as little Cindy on “The Brady Bunch,” along with co-authors Ted Nichelson and Lisa Sutton reveal the disasters behind the set of the programming disaster that was “The Brady Bunch Variety Hour.” The following is an excerpt.

It Was the Seventies, Man!
That’s what I find myself saying when it comes to talk of drug use having an influence on the Brady Bunch Variety Hour and the whole decade in general. Certainly in Los Angeles drug use was fairly normal.

I think that saying that you did cocaine in the seventies is no big admission. Drugs had yet to play themselves out. In time people would see all the great talents get literally wasted. Reliability and good work ethics would return to being in vogue, but for a while things were very loose as long as the job got done. While I had yet to really begin my tasting of all the mind altering substances life had to offer, Maureen was obviously having a problem with substances.

Bear in mind that if Maureen had not revealed that she had a drug problem in her own book, I would not be talking about this at all. We Bradys are fiercely protective of each other. There's been a feeling of "Wow, she got away with it, nobody has ‘told on her’ and we certainly won’t.” I’ll admit that I’m glad she told on herself because it would be difficult to tell the story of the Variety Hour without including our trouble with Maureen.

As anyone who has had a family member with a substance problem knows, it’s a tough road that goes from fear and compassion for the person and anger at them. This production had enough difficulties. Never knowing when or even if Maureen would show up for work added a lethal straw to the camel’s back on a few occasions.

While I now understand that hiding behind a fake persona of perfection was a protective measure Maureen took to shield herself from the pain of her real life, the result of this was a personality that seemed less than sincere. There were times when it was difficult to relate to her because it didn’t seem like there was anyone real in there.

Mo often seemed to have her head in the clouds, so making her the brunt of practical jokes was so easy it could not be resisted. If Maureen seemed high on drugs or out of it, so what? She’d been acting since she was thirteen. Those of us who knew her found her phoniness less than becoming. I can’t really say that we saw through Maureen because if we did, we might have seen what was going on inside her. I think the “Let them eat cake” attitude, along with being blessed with an unfair amount of good looks and talent, kept us from really looking.

So when we were all left waiting for hours for her to show up for work, our reaction was less sympathetic than it would have been for somebody else. It just seemed like Maureen getting away with not caring how much she put other people out. She gets away with it because she’s beautiful and talented and popular — Maureen Maureen Maureen! (Sorry, I had to.)

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