It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Florence Henderson as Carol Brady on The Brady Bunch, but it almost happened. When the classic ABC sitcom was first cast in 1969, actress Joyce Bulifant was given the role of the Brady matriarch. But soon after the offer was taken from her, even though she’d signed a lengthy contract.
More than 55 years later, Bulifant, 88, opened up about the disappointing moment in her career and revealed how she handled the situation with grace and gratitude.
Speaking with Katchy Klassics with Kathy & Larry, Bulifant told podcast hosts Kathy Garver and Larry Dasilva that she had been far into the casting process and had already chosen her wardrobe for The Brady Bunch pilot episode, “The Honeymoon,” when she got the bad news.
“It was a little difficult with The Brady Bunch because I was wardrobe, costume, the little girls were all chosen to look like me,” she shared in the October 2026 interview. “And that was so last-minute. I mean, we were—I was showing the wardrobe to the producer and director, and they just had this look on their face. And I said, ‘What’s wrong? Something is wrong.’ And they said, ‘Yeah, New York wants Florence Henderson all of a sudden. She’s available.’ And that was it.”
Bulifant recalled producer Sherwood Schwartz “really fighting” for her.
“He said, ‘We wrote this to be like The Lucy Show, and if Florence does it, it’ll be like The Donna Reed Show,’” Bulifant recalled. “So they had to change the housekeeper and everything to make her the funny one. Before, the housekeeper was the straight one, and I was the crazy, funny one.”
Bulifant continued, “And in the wardrobe, I had the wedding dress where [the Bradys] were in the garden, and I had the going-away suit after the wedding. And I thought it was—and I signed a seven-year contract. And they gave me a gift, though, when I left: the going-away suit.”
Bulifant noted that she had the same agent as Henderson when her contract was broken.
“But I have to tell you, Sherwood came over to the house. He said, ‘Well, no, we’re fighting for you,’” she remembered. “And he came to the house. He didn’t call. He came to the house to tell me that New York wanted Florence, and they had final say.”
RELATED: ‘Brady Bunch’ Star Says His Own Mom Hated the Show
The actress, who went on to play Marie Slaughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1971, told the podcast hosts that she felt “awfully lucky” for her long career.
“I got a lot of things,” Bulifant shared. “And, you know, it wasn’t like a live-or-die situation as an actress. I felt family was the most important, and I always felt if I didn’t get something, I wasn’t supposed to get it…. I just thought it was disappointing, but I didn’t, you know, I just—I’m so grateful for so many things. … I had two children, and I had a little house, and I knew something else would come along.”
While The Brady Bunch casting switch worked out, Bulifant once revealed that showrunner Schwartz was upset that he had to flip around the mom and housekeeper roles. (Funny lady Ann B. Davis was ultimately cast as housekeeper Alice Nelson after producers initially considered Kathleen Freeman for the role.)
“Sherwood was devastated because the show had a whole new meaning than what he was looking for,” Bulifant told Fox News in 2018. “He said, ‘Any show I do from now on, you’re going to be in it!’ He put me in his next series, but it was a short-lived Saturday morning show.”
Related: Barry Williams Opens Up About the ‘Brady Bunch’ Co-Star Who Had a Lasting Impact on Him
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