Robert Reed

It’s hard not to have compassion for Robert Reed. We generally do around here for people who are stuck in roles they come to hate, and it sounds as though Reed pretty well started there, with Mike Brady. He would later say he took the role for the money, and that’s perfectly valid. However, in his case, not only did he hate the role but he hated the lies he was forced to live. Florence Henderson said after his death that she was sure a great deal of his anger on set was awareness that he had to remain closeted or destroy his career. But also he was not wrong about those scripts.

Actually, I don’t remember a time when I myself didn’t hate The Brady Bunch, so why blame Robert Reed for feeling the same way? He was, after all, playing the architect father who had designed a house for nine with four bedrooms and three bathrooms. (And the kids’ bathroom is tiny.) The idea of the show was sound; nearly a third of American families at the time were blended ones, and why not have one on TV? Granted, Mike’s wife died and Carol’s husband was apparently abducted by aliens—his fate was never revealed—but still, it was at least close to the lived reality of many Americans.

Reed, however, was a classically trained actor. He’d been in a group called the Shakespearewrights. He’d done a term at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. Sure, he went to Hollywood instead of staying with the Studebaker Theatre, but there are lots of actors in Hollywood, then as well as now, doing work worth watching. Hell, Marlon Brando had been heating up the screen for years at that point. And maybe there was only room for one Marlon Brando, but Paul Newman’s career was just starting, and Robert Reed would not have minded that career.

Sherwood Schwartz apparently wanted the show to be nothing but gags and ended up firing Reed—who didn’t even like the screen name “Robert Reed” and though it was too generic—just before the show got canceled altogether. He doesn’t appear in the final episode because he was feuding with Schwartz about how stupid the plot was. Schwartz had enough and fired him, intending to replace him for the sixth season, but there never was one. Reed would continue acting, including playing a transgender character on two episodes of the show Medical Center, which unfortunately is not available streaming. But he also did all the Brady follow-up stuff, including the variety show so he could sing and dance.

He’s often listed as dying of AIDS, and he was HIV-positive when he died. It’s listed as a contributing factor on his death certificate. However, I’m not sure how valid that is. I Am Not A Doctor, but he died of colon lymphoma. There are some cancers, most notably Kaposi’s sarcoma, that are notable in AIDS patients, but Reed did not yet have AIDS, and there’s no information about how damaged his immune system was at the time of his death. And I don’t know if colon lymphoma is one of those cancers. 1992 was better for gay people than 1972, but it’s still entirely possible to read homophobia into that death certificate.