Robert Reed’s Biographer Remembers the ‘Brady Bunch’ Star, Revealing the Man Behind Mike Brady

Here’s the (Early) Story …

He was born John Robert Rietz, Jr. on October 19, 1932 in Highland Park, Illinois. Early on he showed an interest in acting and music, following both pursuits as a student at Central High School in Muskogee, Oklahoma. He also became a local radio announcer as well as the writer and producer of radio dramas. Following high school he enrolled at Northwestern University where, as previously noted, he studied drama. There he took the lead in more than eight plays. Later he would spend one year studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. Then it was back to the States, where he joined summer stock theater in Eagles Mere, Pennsylvania, before becoming a part of the Off-Broadway theatre group known as “The Shakespearewrights,” afterwards finding himself a part of Chicago’s Studebaker Theatre company. This is where he took on the name Robert Reed and moved to Los Angeles to further his acting career.

On the Move

As Ted explains it, when he was a youth Bob pursued his dreams, but there was also the challenge in that his family moved a lot. “Especially during World War II,” he explains. “His father was working for the government doing mechanical repairs on aircraft, so they moved from place to place in these really small, backwards kind of places in Oklahoma. He was in a place called Warner, Oklahoma, and the community was so small that the school taught grades one through 12. Bob was very talented and the senior graduating class actually used him and asked him to do the leading role in their senior class play when he was only in eighth grade. That’s really where all of that started.”

Time to Make a Decision

“They moved up to Muskogee,” he continues, “and he went to high school up there, which is where they kind of gained some stability. They had a turkey farm there and there were a lot of relatives that came to live with them. I think everybody was really having a hard time in the 1940s; it wasn’t a great time economically. By the time he got to Northwestern, that was a huge change for him. It’s when he had to really get on the train and start taking things seriously. And he did very well there and performed a lot of leading roles, though he never did actually graduate. But in those days, if you were an actor you never really did graduate. You got what you needed and you went out and became a famous actor. Many famous actors came out of that program at Northwestern with Alvina Krause, like Cloris Leachman, Charlton Heston, Paul Lynne, Paula Prentiss and Charlotte Rae, among others.

The Transition to Television

Between 1959 and 1961, Robert began making television guest appearances on shows like Make Room for Daddy, Father Knows Best, Men into Space, Bronco and Lawman, as well as the movie Bloodlust. It was the aforementioned The Defenders that really brought him to people’s attention. That show stars E.G. Marshall and Robert as father and son Lawrence and Kenneth Preston, who are defense attorneys specializing in legally complex cases — among them those concerning conscientious objectors, Civil Rights demonstrators, neo-Nazis, abortionists (by far its most controversial episode) and others. It would ultimately win 11 Emmy Awards.

After the show was over, he once again began making episodic guest appearances on different shows of the time, played those Broadway roles in Barefoot in the Park and Avanti!, and appeared in the films Hurry Sundown (1967), Star! (1968), Journey Into Darkness (1968) and The Maltese Bippy (1969). Next up, of course, was The Brady Bunch.

A Man Named Brady

Notes Ted, “After The Defenders he did a long string of smaller things, and then came The Brady Bunch. He was selected for that, because of his onscreen chemistry with Florence Henderson and he had what they call a High TV Q, which means that people recognized him. He was very conflicted about it, because of the difference in approach between him and [series creator] Sherwood Schwartz and his team. When he was cast in The Brady Bunch, I think he was surprised and shocked and a little dismayed that it stayed on the air. I don’t think he went in kicking and screaming, but he was probably hoping they would find someone else to do it. Ultimately he decided to do it, because he thought it would only go half a season before it got canceled, because he thought, ‘This can’t go anywhere.’”

You Are Incorrect, Bob!

Well, it did, and Robert wasn’t exactly a happy Brady. “Bob was very serious and one of the reasons, in my opinion, that The Brady Bunch was so successful was because of his insistence of the quality of the scripts and that everything be accurate,” Ted elaborates. “That may have annoyed a hell of a lot of people, but I think by the end Bob was getting so sick of this fight. And, you know, the last episode they did was so ridiculous; like Gilligan’s Island ridiculous And he was so angry, saying things like, ‘Why are you giving me this crap?’ If you look at the last season of The Brady Bunch, there was a thing with martians, and then there’s one where Peter finds a twin at his high school, then there’s a pie fight and there’s this thing of Greg’s hair turning orange. It was almost like they’d run out of ideas. The first two seasons is a lot about people getting to know each other in a blended family, which was a very legitimate thing. Great writing and everything, but it changed.

Taking a Clear View of Things

“If anybody takes a step back and looks at all of this, they will understand that that’s very frustrating for someone. That’s where Bob was coming from. At the same time, I think Bob was very conflicted with The Brady Bunch as well. He enjoyed working with the people and he was very careful to protect the child actors where he didn’t have his tantrums in front of them. He was always doing things for them, trying to educate them on different things that were important to him. He gave them movie cameras and took them on a trip to London. He would give them certain books to read. He was someone who cared about them and cared about their growth and development. So there’s that side of it.”

Personal Conflict

Complicating his life was the fact that Robert was gay at a time when this wasn’t widely accepted in the show business or society. “With his orientation,” Ted muses, “I think that he really wanted to be straight, but he was always going down that road and I don’t think he was very successful in that part of his life and things were not very conducive in those days to having … you know, people’s lifestyles were pretty much set in stone as this is how it is culturally and everything else. At the same time, I think that far too much has also been made about his orientation and that it was exploited for other people’s gain. Especially by Gerald Rivera, who expanded his name on the grave of Robert Reed. He and his goon squad went around Los Angeles harassing people for information to the point where it was really just so upsetting. The thing that was really shocking for me was when I went through the tabloids and saw so many things that just were not true.”

The Cause of Personal Pain

Supporting the idea of that being unable to be honest about his orientation was painful to him, both Barry Williams (who played son Greg Brady) and Florence Henderson (wife Carol Brady) discussed the subject with ABC News. Said Florence, “Here he was, the perfect father of this wonderful little family, a perfect husband. Off camera, he was an unhappy person — I think had Bob not been forced to live this double life, it would have dissipated a lot of that anger and frustration. I never asked him. I never challenged him. I had a lot of compassion for him, because I knew how he was suffering with keeping this secret.”

“Robert didn’t want to go there,” added Barry in terms of the actor never discussing the subject. “I don’t think he talked about it with anyone. I just don’t think it was a discussion — period. Had it come out, it probably would have caused the demise of the show. I think it would have hurt his career tremendously.” Sad, but likely true.

Life Between ‘Brady’ Projects

When The Brady Bunch ended its run in 1974, Robert embraced a variety of roles. He continued to occasionally appear on Mannix (which he had done throughout the Brady years — both shows were owned by Paramount and shot on the same lot), starred in dramatic TV movies like Pray for the Wildcats (co-starring Andy Griffith in a change of pace role for him) and The Secret Night Caller, in which he played a stalker. Then, in 1975, he appeared on a two-part story for the drama Medical Center, playing a doctor who becomes a transgender — a role that earned him critical acclaim. “It’s a very dramatic episode,” says Ted, “with him saying goodbye to his wife and telling her, ‘This is who I am now.’ And that scene at the end where he’s dressed up like a woman has nothing to do with him being gay or anything like that. People say, ‘Oh, he was gay and he was playing a transvestite.’ That’s not it. It’s not like he was trying to shed his Brady image, but Bob had an opportunity to do these wonderful things.”

‘Roots’ to ‘The Brady Bunch Variety Hour’

The mid-7os were pretty wild for Robert in the sense that he would continue making guest appearances while shooting TV movies (Nightmare in Bedham County, The Boy in the Plastic Bubble), TV miniseries (Rich Man, Poor Man; Roots) and a return as Mike Brady in The Brady Bunch Variety Hour. Recalls Ted, “There’s that terrible scene in Roots where he sold the daughter of the woman he owned, because he was trying to get back at her. It’s a very disturbing scene. How different from Mike Brady could he go?”

Singing and Dancing His Heart Out

Look, the premise of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour is pretty out there: the actors play the Bradys who are serving as host of their own variety show. The concept is puzzling in itself, but not as confusing as why Robert Reed, who hated doing the original series, would reprise his role of Mike Brady. “For one thing, it had nothing to do with Sherwood Schwartz,” says Ted, referring to the fact that the show was a Sid and Marty Krofft production. “The other thing is that it gave Bob a chance to do something he hadn’t really explored in his career very much, so he thought, ‘Hell, I’ll give this a try.’ He was available and they were willing to pay. On top of that, it was considered a legitimate form of television at the time, although it seems very ridiculous now. It was a spin-off of the Donny & Marie Show, which was very popular then.”

‘The Brady Girls Get Married’

Interestingly, Robert also seemed to have an issue with the idea of any form of the Bradys going on without him; that despite his anger at the scripts of the original, he felt a certain proprietary interest. “When the TV movie The Brady Girls Get Married was written, Bob was starring in Deathtrap on Broadway in November or December of 1980 and he wasn’t cast in the film. He called Sherwood Schwartz and was, like, ‘What do you mean I’m not in this? The only person that’s going to give away my girls is me.’ And Bob actually bought himself out of Deathtrap and paid his own way to Los Angeles to shoot his part in that TV movie. He had to be in that movie. Sherwood was happy to have the original actor, but they were all set to replace him with someone else.”

More Reunions, More Battles

Additional guest starring roles and TV movies followed. He was back as Mike Brady in the TV movie A Very Brady Christmas (1988), its spinoff series The Bradys (1990) and, in between, a spoofy episode of the sitcom Day by Day. “Bob was happy to come back for the Brady Christmas film, although he thought that was ridiculous, too,” Ted points out. “but when it came to The Bradys, I think they were offered a great deal of money to do that series. And Bob was one of the reasons that really didn’t go forward beyond a handful of episodes. Aside from the fact it didn’t have very good ratings, Bob was back objecting to everything and making everyone miserable. And he was a little more angry than usual. At that time he was already teaching acting at UCLA and really wanted The Bradys to be more of a serious drama. But they started adding a laugh track to it and it just became an hour-long version of The Brady Bunch, which Bob was really pissed about. He tried to convince CBS to fire Sherwood Schwartz, pointing out that there could be some potential in this, but that didn’t work and the atmosphere became very toxic. It’s easy to paint Bob as the bad guy, but there were other problems. Nonetheless he could have expressed himself differently, though his feeling was, ‘Good Lord, at this stage of my career look at what I’m doing.’ If you try to understand him, it’s easy to sympathize.”

Teaching Others

Following The Bradys, Robert took his lifetime of acting experience and really tried to put it to practical use, focusing on teaching at UCLA. Ted relates, “I spoke with many of his students and it was a really great class. They learned a lot and he was very personal with the students in terms of sharing his knowledge and trying to help them be better actors. That was sort of how he kind of wrapped up his life, volunteering to teach at UCLA.”

A Tragic Turn

What should have been a new chapter for Robert Reed was not to be. In November 1991 he was diagnosed with colon cancer, which, combined with the fact he was HIV positive (though, it should be pointed out, he did not have AIDS), claimed his life on May 12, 1992 at the age of 59. Amazingly, though, the diagnosis didn’t cause him to retreat from life. Far from it. “While he was sick, he started a tour of Love Letters with Betsy Palmer,” says Ted, “and it was great for Bob, because he could sit and read these love letters and it was a back and forth. And he did that all the way until maybe a couple of months before before he passed away. He was having chemotherapy and would get right on the plane and go to the next show. He was very dedicated and kept acting almost until the end. The point is, he did not retire and then retreat to his home. He was always working.”

A Final Thought

For Ted, his hope is that he’s offered up a fairly complete summary of Robert Reed: “I want people to know that he was a great human being and someone that other people loved very much, and he should be remembered that way. Bob wanted everything to be the best that it could be. He had standards and his feeling was that it’s not worth doing if it’s not done well.”