Florence Henderson Was Television’s Archetypal Mom

As Carol Brady, matriarch of a new sort of TV family, Florence Henderson, who died on Nov. 24 of heart failure at 82, tended to cede the spotlight. Carol’s three daughters, and the three stepsons from her marriage to Mike Brady, roiled with more than their share of little dramas, yet she is the Brady who resonates most in memory. Throughout The Brady Bunch’s run from 1969 to 1974 (and its decades in syndication), it was Henderson’s sensible, good-humored mom who sustained the family through endless antics. Whether Marcia was suffering a bruised schnoz from an errant football or Bobby was digging up a cursed Hawaiian tiki idol, Henderson played Carol as bemused and steady, ever ready with a word of wisdom, delivered with a frankness that balanced the show’s cutesy instincts.

Bringing together six kids was a task harder than their congruent ages and hairstyles suggested, but Henderson’s élan made it look easy, even graceful. You’d never know from watching her performance today that it was shot at a time when blended families–Mike was a widower, Carol a divorcée (although ABC wouldn’t allow creator Sherwood Schwartz to mention that)–weren’t the norm. Even without a script to work from, Henderson’s even keel and wit served her well in the decades following The Brady Bunch, including recent turns on daytime and reality TV. If there were ever a performer equipped to appraise a situation, see it for what it is and make it seem comfortably familiar, it was the woman we came to embrace as the nation’s mom.