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Barry Williams hit the pause button to be back for A Very Brady Christmas
The family may have all aged, but their chemistry was as familiar as the original days of The Brady Bunch.
As a teenager, Barry Williams was the ultimate heartthrob. He would receive more than 800 fan letters per week — some were from boys who looked up to his Brady Bunch character — the rest were from girls who wanted to date him.
Almost 20 years after he played the role of Greg Brady on The Brady Bunch, Williams had a career in both theater, Broadway, and television by the late '80s.
While he may not have been the 19-year-old heartthrob he once was, he still was loved by many women who followed his career even after Greg Brady hung up his cleats.
With a Broadway tour for Romance, Romance being put on pause for him to reunite with his Brady family, Williams took a break from everything current to return to what started it all.
In a 1988 interview with the Kennebec Journal, Williams said he was excited to join his former onscreen siblings for A Very Brady Christmas. He remembered the past to prepare for his role of Greg Brady once again.
"When you've only got one childhood, you don't know if you're missing a normal one or not," Williams said. "In my own life, I found that I went through my own teenage rebellion in my mid-20s because I had to be so serious and responsible as a teenager. I didn't have time to rebel."
The series ran on ABC for a total of five seasons, monopolizing most of Williams' teenage years. After his time on The Brady Bunch, Williams had to fight against typecasting. According to the interview, he said he was still thought of as a teenager even after turning 21.
"I decided I wouldn't use The Brady Bunch to work against me, and I wouldn't use it to work for me," Williams said. "I just had it as a credit, one part of my career. It was like starting over again."
Despite his typecasting concerns, Williams got many jobs after The Brady Bunch. You can't be one of the country's biggest heartthrobs and not stay in people's minds.
In 2023, Williams was a guest on Dancing with the Stars, where he proved he still had a little bit of Greg Brady's youth in him. The Brady Bunch may not have had new episodes since the '70s, but the reruns live on forever. However, Williams compared the reruns to "home movies" and said he didn't watch them. He knows what happens by the end anyway.
According to the interview, A Very Brady Christmas was considered natural and inevitable because TV viewers at the time wanted more nostalgic content. Before he agreed to do the film, he asked to see the script. With a nod of approval, he was back.
"It was a good experience, working with people I like a lot," Williams said. "I'm glad we're doing a reunion because it somehow kind of legitimizes all of those early years. It almost makes them current. I can go my whole life and never do another Brady Bunch episode and it will be okay because Greg has a kid and he's a doctor and he's married. It answers the question 'Whatever happened to Greg Brady?'"
Robert Reed had gone gray, Cindy Brady no longer had her signature curls and Ann B. Nelson had aged quite a bit by A Very Brady Christmas, yet it still felt like home for both viewers and Williams.
In the special, the Brady family tackled their traditional and many familiar family issues, but there was nothing that couldn't be cured by sage advice from Reed or a Christmas carol by Florence Henderson.
"I hope the audience will be pleased," Williams said in a 1988 interview with The San Francisco Examiner. "There aren't any real surprises. Our show never was much in the business of surprises, but I think they'll be pleased. It sounds like boasting, but I was struck by what a handsome family we are. We didn't turn up any uglies."
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16 Comments
But if you're talking other child actors, you might have mentioned that Kerry (SP, btw) Hathaway was played by the once-cute and soon-to-be gorgeous Kym Karath from the Sound of Music. (Which, incidentally, completes Part 1 of the long-form trivia essay question - "Complete the BB/Sound of Music Connection"...still two parts left though...have at it!!)
I truly can’t stand that this guy keeps getting invited to these events based solely on something he did as a teenager 50 years ago.
Was it the "greatest" show ever? Nobody (except my 5-year-old self) would ever say that! The lack of true ratings success clearly states that it was not.
But I will defend the BB with my core (hence the screenname) for EXACTLY what it was - a simple family sitcom that provided us joy and laughter for its initial five years, and fond memories for nearly another 50 after that.
I agree, of course. As would most discerning TV viewers, even with our own biases. (My screenname cannot belie my fandom!) Quality and popularity are not even close to the same thing. Freaks and Geeks and Sports Night were, sadly, two of my favorites in the 90s and neither lasted very long. Yet, they were both of THE HIGHEST quality. Neither was ever popular. (By ratings standards...the only thing that matters!)
Nobody who really knows would try to argue that the BB was of the highest quality...but we liked it. Most big fans, of coures, know that it wasn't even THAT popular for the five years that it aired from 1969 - 1974 - it never even cracked the top 30!! It took off in rerun and syndication, soared even higher with our nostalgia, and that's why we're still talking about it 50(!) years later!!