Florence Henderson Biography

Florence Agnes Henderson (born February 14, 1934) is an American actress and singer. She is best known for her role of Carol Brady on the ABC sitcom The Brady Bunch from 1969 to 1974. She may also be known for being a contestant on Dancing with the Stars in 2010. Henderson currently hosts her own talk show, The Florence Henderson Show, on RLTV.

Early life

Henderson, the youngest of ten children, was born in Dale, Indiana, a small town in the southwest region of the state. Henderson was a daughter of Elizabeth (née Elder), a homemaker, and Joseph Henderson, a tobacco sharecropper. She is of English origin. Raised a Roman Catholic, she graduated from St. Francis Academy in Owensboro, Kentucky, in 1951; shortly thereafter, she went to New York City, enrolling in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She is an Alumna Initiate of the Alpha Chi chapter of Delta Zeta sorority.

Career

Henderson started her career on the stage, performing in musicals, such as the touring production of Oklahoma! and South Pacific at Lincoln Center. She 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. Henderson also appeared on Broadway in The Girl Who Came to Supper (1963). In 1962, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre, and the same year became the first woman to guest host The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. She also joined the ranks of what was then called "The Today Girl" on NBC's long running morning show, doing weather and light news, a position also once held by Barbara Walters.

Her most widely seen role was as Carol Brady in The Brady Bunch which aired on ABC from 1969 until 1974. Henderson's best friend, Shirley Jones, had previously turned down the role as at the time she wasn't ready to do a TV series and she needed to spend more time with her children and stepchild.

Primarily owing to her role in The Brady Bunch, Henderson was ranked by TV Land and Entertainment Weekly as one of the 100 Greatest TV Icons.

Henderson was a frequent panelist on the original version of the television game show Hollywood Squares and made occasional appearances on The $25,000 Pyramid.

Henderson was the spokeswoman for Wesson cooking oil from 1976 to 1996. During that time, she hosted a cooking show on TNN called Country Kitchen, and also did ads for Prange's, a former Wisconsin department store chain. Henderson co-hosted the talk show Later Today on NBC (1999"2000) with co-hosts Jodi Applegate and Asha Blake. In the 2000s, she was the spokeswoman for Polident denture cleanser. In 2003, Henderson seemed to poke fun at her wholesome image by appearing in a Pepsi Twist television commercial with Ozzy Osbourne.

Henderson has also appeared with her TV children, as with Christopher Knight on the reality television series My Fair Brady. She is also in the sixth season of VH1's The Surreal Life.

In most years since the mid-1990s, the song "God Bless America" has been performed by Henderson at the Indianapolis 500 accompanied by the Purdue All-American Marching Band, Henderson being a friend of the Hulman-George family, the owners of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

She appeared in the "Weird Al" Yankovic video for "Amish Paradise" and co-hosted the daily talk show "Living Live" with former Designing Women star Meshach Taylor on Retirement Living TV. The show was reworked to focus on her and was renamed "The Florence Henderson Show". In 2002 she made a memorable guest appearance on comedy improv show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, participating in on-screen kisses with Ryan Stiles and Colin Mochrie.

Since 2008, Henderson has been the host of her own television series, The Florence Henderson Show, which airs on RLTV (Retirement Living TV). The show was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2010. In May 2010, Henderson did a series of promotional radio ads for Fox. On the July 12, 2010 edition of WWE Raw, Henderson appeared as the night's guest host.

Henderson was one of twelve celebrities competing on the eleventh season of Dancing with the Stars which premiered on September 20, 2010. Her professional partner was Corky Ballas. On October 19, 2010 she was voted off the show.

Henderson made a special appearance on May 11, 2012 in a special Mother's Day episode on The Price Is Right with Drew Carey, displaying prizes as well as one of the showcases.

Personal life

In the mid-1950s, Henderson was diagnosed with a bone deformation of the middle ear, and she had to have surgery to prevent deafness (later she was made an honorary member of the Delta Zeta sorority who do a lot of work for the House Ear Institute and the hearing impaired). Henderson married Ira Bernstein in January 1956, and the couple had four children, Barbara, Joseph, Robert, and Elizabeth. During the filming of The Brady Bunch in Los Angeles, Henderson returned to the family's New York home each weekend to spend time with her children. In her autobiography "Life Is Not A Stage" she acknowledges her infidelity during her marriage to Bernstein including an affair with then-New York City Mayor John Lindsay, whom the actress claims gave her crab lice. In 1985, she divorced Bernstein after almost 29 years of marriage. She later married John Kappas, a hypnotherapist and founder of the Hypnosis Motivation Institute, whom she met while battling depression in the mid 1980s. Henderson studied hypnotherapy and is a licensed therapist. Kappas died in 2002.

She had cataract surgery.

In the 2000s, she has been a supporter of the Sisters of St. Benedict in Ferdinand, Indiana; one of the Sisters was her teacher when she was young. She has appeared in a number of their promotional videos and has helped in fund-raising efforts. She has won money for the Sisters on the game show The Weakest Link and on a classic-television-themed episode of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire in 2001, winning $32,000 in their name. On the show, Florence used her son Joseph as a Phone-a-Friend lifeline for the $64,000 question on a question about laser colors and answered correctly; however, she then got the $125,000 question wrong and lost $32,000. When Florence appeared on the VH1 show The Surreal Life, she made a point of showing respect for the Catholic Church and the Sisters of St. Benedict by refusing to dress in a nun's costume for a comedy skit.

Filmography

Television

• General Foods 25th Anniversary Show: A Salute to Rodgers and Hammerstein (1954)
• Sing Along (1958"1959)
• Little Women (1958)
• Tonight Starring Jack Paar (regular guest from 1958"1962)
• Oldsmobile Music Theatre (1959) (canceled after a few months)
• The Today Show (Today Girl from 1959"1960)
• Discovery '63 (1963)
• I Spy episode "The Abbe and the Nymph" (1967)
• The Dean Martin Show (1968) (guest star)
• The Brady Bunch (1969"1974)
• A World Of Love " Celebrating UNICEF (CBS Special Broadcast) (1970)
• The Love Boat (1976) (pilot for series)
• The Muppet Show (1976) (guest star)
• The Paul Lynde Halloween Special (1976)
• The Brady Bunch Variety Hour (1976"1977)
• The Brady Girls Get Married (1981)
• The Brady Brides (1981) (canceled after 10 episodes)
• Alice 1 episode played a night club singer "Sarah James". (1983)
• Murder, She Wrote 2 episodes ("Death Stalks the Big Top", 1986, and "Ballad for a Blue Lady",1990).
• Country Kitchen (1985"1993)
• It's Garry Shandling's Show (1987) (guest appearance)
• Just a Regular Kid: An AIDS Story (1987)
• A Very Brady Christmas (1988)
• The Bradys (1990) (canceled after 6 episodes)
• Dave's World (1993) (occasional " Beth's mother)
• Roseanne (1994) Guest star
• Fudge-a-Mania (1995)
• The King of Queens as Lilly, Carrie Heffernan's stepmother (1998)
• Short Cut Cooking (1998"2000)
• Later Today (1999"2000)
• Legend of the Candy Cane (2001)
• Moms On Strike (2002)
• Whose Line Is It Anyway? (2002) (Guest appearance)
• Speaking of Women's Health (2003"????)
• The Surreal Life (cast member in 2006)
• The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2007)
• Living Live (2007)
• Loonatics Unleashed (2007) (Guest voice)
• Ladies of the House (TV movie) (2008)
• The Florence Henderson Show (TV Show on Network Cable RLTV) (2008 " present)
• WWE Raw (2010) (Guest Host)
• Dancing with the Stars (2010) (Dancer)
• The Cleveland Show (2012) (Guest voice)
• The Living Room (2012) (Guest appearance)
• Handy Manny (2012) (Guest voice)
• Happily Divorced (2012)

Film

• Song of Norway (1970)
• Shakes the Clown (1992)
• Naked Gun 33"?": The Final Insult (1994) (Cameo)
• The Brady Bunch Movie (1995) (Cameo)
• Holy Man (1998) (Cameo)
• Get Bruce (1999) (documentary)
• Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star (2003)
• For Heaven's Sake (2008)
• Venus & Vegas (2009)
• The Christmas Bunny (2010)
• The Family Group (2011)
• Young One (2013)

Stage Work

• Carousel (1949)
• Wish You Were Here (1952)
• Oklahoma! (1952)
• The Great Waltz (1953)
• Oklahoma! (1953)
• Fanny (1954)
• The Sound of Music (1961)
• The Girl Who Came to Supper (1963)
• The King and I (1965)
• Jerome Kern's Theatre (1966)
• South Pacific (1967)
• The Sound of Music (1968)
• Annie Get Your Gun (1974)
• The Sound of Music (1978)
• Bells Are Ringing (1978)
• Annie Get Your Gun (1981)
• Alone Together (1989)

Awards

• 2008 : Gracie Awards
• 2012 : Gracie Awards