Florence Henderson

To those of us who grew up in the 1970s, The Brady Bunch was an afternoon television show we all remember. A family of eight who highly depended on their mother played by Florence Henderson to get them through the struggles of everyday life. She was the even keel to their chaotic everyday turmoil.

Florence Agnes Henderson was born on February 14, 1934, during the Great Depression, in Dale, Indiana, a small town in the southwestern part of the state. Henderson, the youngest of 10 children, was the daughter of Elizabeth Elder, a homemaker, and Joseph Henderson, a tobacco sharecropper.

She was taught to sing at the age of two by her mother, who had a repertoire of 50 songs. By the time she was eight, her family called her “Florency,” and by age 12, she was singing at local grocery stores.

Florence Henderson’s family later moved to Owensboro, Kentucky, where she graduated from Saint Francis Academy in 1951. However, she never forgot her Indiana roots and she returned to Indiana quite often during her life to visit friends and relatives.

After graduating high school, Florence went to New York City, enrolling in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She started her career on the stage performing in musicals, such as the touring production of Oklahoma! And South Pacific at Lincoln Center.

Henderson debuted on Broadway in the musical Wish You Were Here in 1952, and later starred on Broadway in the long-running 1954 musical, Fanny (888 performances) in which she originated the title role. She appeared with Gordon MacRae in the Oklahoma! Segment of the 90-minute television special, General Foods 25th Anniversary Show: A Salute to Rodgers and Hammerstein in 1954.

From 1958 through 1961, Henderson, appeared along with Bill Hayes, in the Oldsmobile commercials on The Patti Page Show, for which Oldsmobile was the sponsor. And in 1959, she sang “Don’t Let a Be-Back Get Away,” in Good News About Olds, an industrial musical for Oldsmobile. Bill Hayes and she also gave a musical performance on the January 13, 1960, broadcast of Tonight, starring Jack Parr. In 1962, she became the first woman to guest host The Tonight Show.

However, her most widely recognized role was as Carol Brady in The Brady Bunch, which aired on ABC from 1969 until 1974. Henderson’s best friend, Shirley Jones, had turned down the role.

Henderson was the spokeswoman for Wesson cooking oil from 1974 to 1996. During that time, she hosted a cooking show on TNN, called Country Kitchen.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, Henderson would perform the song “God Bless America,” at the Indianapolis 500, accompanied by the Purdue All-American Marching Band, at the request of the Hulman-George family, the owners of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and friends of Henderson’s. She continued this for many years.

She appeared on many television series as a guest, and in the 2000s, she was the spokeswoman for Polident.

Also, during the 2000s, Henderson became a public benefactor to the sisters of Saint Benedict in Ferdinand, Indiana. Some of the nuns there had been her early educators. She appeared in several of their promotional videos and helped in fundraising efforts too. She won money for the sisters on the television game show, The Weakest Link, and on a classic episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in 2001, winning $32,000 in their name.

Henderson was also a contestant on Dancing with the Stars in 2010. In February 2013, she began hosting a cooking show, Who’s Cooking with Florence Henderson, on Retirement Living TV.

She won many awards during her life. Since 2004, Indiana Grand Racing and Casino in Shelbyville, Indiana, holds a horse race for three-year olds, and it is named in her honor, the Florence Henderson Stakes, on the Tuesday after Labor Day in September.

Henderson died on November 24, 2016, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 82. She had been hospitalized the previous day, according to her manager. Henderson died of heart failure.

Three days before her death, she had attended the recording of Dancing with the Stars to support her friend, and former on-screen daughter Maureen McCormick, who was a contestant. Henderson was not ill prior to her sudden hospitalization, and her death came as a “shock.”

Primarily owing to her role on The Brady Bunch, Henderson was ranked by TV Land and Entertainment Weekly as number 54 on their list of the 100 Greatest TV Icons. Her career spanned six decades, and she will always be remembered for her starring role as Carol Brady on the ABC sitcom, The Brady Bunch.

Today, there is a small monument in the city park at Dale, Indiana, that indicates where the house once stood where Florence Henderson was born.