RIP Mrs Brady, Florence Henderson dies.

[MacNut]

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Florence Henderson, the wholesome actress who went from Broadway star to television icon when she became Carol Brady, the ever-cheerful matriarch of "The Brady Bunch," has died, her manager and her publicist said. She was 82.

Henderson died Thursday night at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, after being hospitalized the day before, said her publicist, David Brokaw. Henderson had suffered heart failure, her manager Kayla Pressman said in a statement.

Family and friends had surrounded Henderson's hospital bedside, Pressman said.

On the surface, "The Brady Bunch" resembled just another innocuous TV sitcom about a family living in suburban America and getting into a different wacky situation each week.

But well after it ended its initial run, in 1974, the show resonated with audiences, and it returned to television in various forms again and again, including "The Brady Bunch Hour" in 1977, "The Brady Brides" in 1981 and "The Bradys" in 1990. It was also seen endlessly in reruns.

Henderson was a 19-year-old drama student in New York when she landed a one-line role in the play "Wish You Were Here."

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were so impressed they made her the female lead in a 1952 road tour of "Oklahoma!" When the show returned to Broadway for a revival in 1954, she continued in the role and won rave reviews.

"She is the real thing, right of of a butter churn somewhere," wrote Walter Kerr of the New York Herald Tribune.

To broaden her career, Henderson took acting, dancing, singing and guitar lessons, even studying French and Italian.

She went on to play Maria in a road production of "The Sound of Music," was Nellie Forbush in a revival of "South Pacific" and was back on Broadway with Jose Ferrer in "The Girl Who Came to Supper" in 1963.

She made her movie debut in 1970 in "Song of Norway," based on the 1944 operetta with music by Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg.

Her career nearly came to an end in 1965 when she suddenly lost her hearing while appearing in "The King and I" in Los Angeles. She was diagnosed with a hereditary condition called osteosclerosis.

"Corrective surgery in both ears restored my hearing," she said in 2007.

As her TV career blossomed with "The Brady Bunch," Henderson also began to make frequent TV guest appearances. She was the first woman to host "The Tonight Show" for the vacationing Johnny Carson.

For eight years she also commuted to Nashville to conduct a cooking and talk series, "Country Kitchen," on The Nashville Network. The show resulted in a book, "Florence Henderson's Short Cut Cooking."

After "The Brady Bunch" ended its first run, Henderson alternated her appearances in revivals of the show with guest appearances on other programs, including "Hart to Hart," ''Fantasy Island" and "The Love Boat."

In later years she also made guest appearances on such shows as "Roseanne, "Ally McBeal" and "The King of Queens."

Florence Agnes Henderson was born Feb. 14, 1934, in the small town of Dale in southern Indiana. She was the 10th child of a tobacco sharecropper of Irish descent.

In grade school, she joined the choir at a Catholic church in Rockport, Ind.

After high school she moved to New York, where she enrolled in a two-year program at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, her studies financed by a theatrical couple who had been impressed by her singing when they saw her perform in high school.

She dropped out of the program after one year, however, to take the role in "Wish You Were There."

Henderson married theater executive Ira Bernstein and the couple had four children before the union ended in divorce after 29 years.

Her second husband, John Kappas, died in 2002.

Pressman said she is survived by her children; Barbara, Joseph, Robert and Lizzie, their respective spouses, and five grandchildren.

https://apnews.com/2f3b33a3942d433fa542d092825f5353/Florence-Henderson,--

 

[Nick11Mac]

She had a long career, always thought she was a good actress.

 

[rdowns]

Not Mrs. Brady. 2016, you suck balls.

 

[jaduff46]

Met her in the early 60s when I was in HS outside Chicago. Wonderful woman.

 

[aaronvan]

Sad, although I didn't like the Brady Bunch. I was more of a Partridge Family kid.

 

[ucfgrad93]

Very sad, she was a good actress and a wonderful person.

 

[LizKat]

10th kid of an Irish-American tobacco sharecropper in a tiny piece of Indiana.

"Flyover country"... my a##.

I mean one can fly over a lot of places in the USA but one will clearly will miss a lot. It takes a certain amount of grit to get out of Dale, Indiana and a certain amount of character to live like you would still be welcome at table back there. And the meantime to have become such a wonderful entertainer. RIP Florence Henderson!

 

[dXTC]

Not Mrs. Brady. 2016, you suck balls.

No kidding. Ol' Grim Reaper has kept quite busy in the celebrity world this year. Henderson joins several other sitcom legends who have passed away this year:

• Abe Vigoda (of Barney Miller fame)
• Doris Roberts (Marie on Everybody Loves Raymond)
• Garry Shandling (The Larry Sanders Show)
• Pat Harrington (Schneider on One Day At A Time)
• Patty Duke (star of her namesake show)
• William Schallert, the actor who played Patty Duke's father in that show
• George Gaynes, the "father" of Punky Brewster
  
• Garry Marshall, creator of Happy Days and its many spinoffs
• Michu Meszaros, Hungarian actor who played ALF in costume during full-body/motion shots
• Natalya Krachkovskaya, Russian film actress who played in the 90s Russian sitcom Klubnichka in her later years.

And the year's not over yet.

 

[JamesMike]

She had a good career.

 

[rhett7660]

UGH....... 2016 you can really kiss my ass at this point.

RIP ........

 

[Solomani]

RIP Mrs. Brady. So long Mrs. Wessonality!

[doublepost=1480325646][/doublepost]

No kidding. Ol' Grim Reaper has kept quite busy in the celebrity world this year. Henderson joins several other sitcom legends who have passed away this year:

• Abe Vigoda (of Barney Miller fame)
• Doris Roberts (Marie on Everybody Loves Raymond)
• Garry Shandling (The Larry Sanders Show)
• Pat Harrington (Schneider on One Day At A Time)
• Patty Duke (star of her namesake show)
• William Schallert, the actor who played Patty Duke's father in that show
• George Gaynes, the "father" of Punky Brewster
  
• Garry Marshall, creator of Happy Days and its many spinoffs
• Michu Meszaros, Hungarian actor who played ALF in costume during full-body/motion shots
• Natalya Krachkovskaya, Russian film actress who played in the 90s Russian sitcom Klubnichka in her later years.

I was also saddened when Cal Worthington died a couple years ago. The West Coast knows Cal more than most "celebrities".

 

[5105973]

As much as I loved Prince and Leonard Nimoy and Alan Rickman, I didn't cry when they died. However, I did sit at my kitchen table and shed a couple of tears for this lovely lady. When my childhood was utter crap sometimes, as it is for all kids at some time or another, she was one of my favorite tv moms I could "borrow" for a half an hour during Brady Bunch when my own mom was being a garden variety flawed human being.

I just recently found out her own mom abandoned the family when she was 12 and that her childhood was horrible. So she became the incredible mom she never had and always wanted. Just three days before she died she was out giving her support to her tv daughter Maureen McCormick on Dancing With The Stars. It wasn't just a persona for her. She wanted to truly be that giving and kind and make people feel better for having known her. Well...mission accomplished. RIP.

Here's an interview with Maureen about Florence and an article about Florence supporting her on DWTS: http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity...remembering-tv-mom-florence-henderson-w452650