u/No-North6514

This article appeared in the March 19th, 1972 New York Daily News and writer Rex Reed was charmed by her.

The highlights:

What Reed thinks of her:

“Being around Florence Henderson is a little like having a milkshake hangover.”

He jokes that everybody knows she's nice, which normally makes for terrible interview material. But he concludes that the niceness is genuine. Despite being in a hard, cynical business without apparently becoming cynical herself. She had been performing professionally since appearing opposite Ezio Pinza in Fanny in 1954, yet in Reed's view she retained the personality of the Indiana farm girl she'd been.

Her real family versus The Brady Bunch:

This is one of the most interesting sections because Henderson was simultaneously playing America's ideal television mother while raising four actual children.

She admits:

“It isn't easy. I hate being away from the kids.”

She says she tries never to be gone more than three weeks, brings the family to California during filming when possible, and flies home on weekends. She even wrote a ten-minute nightclub segment for her children so they could travel and perform with her.

She describes her husband, theatrical manager Ira Bernstein, as extremely patient and understanding and says their arrangement probably wouldn't work with anyone else.

She wasn't terribly impressed with The Brady Bunch at first:

Henderson says her husband initially discouraged her from doing the show because he understood how much she'd already been away from the family.

And then she says:

“And it was a terrible show at first. But now that it is a big success, I'm adjusting.”

She also makes clear that she doesn't particularly like California and phones her bills “astronomical” because she calls home from California twice a day.

She wasn't making a fortune from Brady Bunch

Henderson explains that after maintaining her New York apartment and California house, paying living expenses and buying airline tickets:

“I probably will only break even. Money is not my motivation.”

That's an important reminder of what being a television star could mean then. She wasn't living permanently in Los Angeles; she was maintaining a bicoastal family and career.

Her attitude is basically: she works because she likes working.

Her childhood:

She says she arrived in New York at 17, the youngest of 10 children from a very poor family.

A wealthy local family sponsored her for a year so she could study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. When that year ended, she landed Wish You Were Here and never stopped working.

She says she returned home for a class reunion and realized:

“I have changed. And boy, am I glad of it!”

That's quite a contrast with Carol Brady.

Her Broadway career was genuinely substantial

Reed spends a lot of space reminding readers that Henderson wasn't simply a sitcom actress.

She toured in The Sound of Music and starred in Noël Coward's The Girl Who Came to Supper. Her recollections of the latter are particularly good because the production was an enormous mess.

She describes opening out of town with the “biggest hit in America,” only to have the director become ill, Walter Kerr come in to help, Noël Coward leave for Jamaica, and President Kennedy's assassination occur while they were struggling toward Broadway.

By the time the show opened in New York, she says:

“nobody cared anymore.”

She also remembers José Ferrer wanting to sing everything while Henderson believed in recognizing one's limitations:

“I wouldn't attempt to do Margot Fonteyn's work.”

That's a revealing philosophy—know what you're good at and don't pretend you can do everything.

She talks frankly about failure

Reed brings up Song of Norway, the expensive 1970 movie musical in which Henderson played Nina Grieg. A critic had made a particularly nasty crack about her smiling through the film.

Henderson laughs about it and simply admits:

“It really was a terrible movie.”

That's another thing I like about this interview. She doesn't seem defensive about her failures.

Jack Paar taught her television:

“I learned from masters.”

Working with Paar taught her the power of television as a personality medium. She later became a “Today Girl” and says interviewing people every morning prepared her for almost anything.

She tells a funny story about interviewing a Japanese woman who did floral arrangements. Henderson knelt beside her wearing a kimono and asked about 17 questions; the woman responded essentially “Ah, sooooo…” to everything. Henderson says she finally turned bright red and announced that they were going back to Dave Garroway.

She says experiences like that prepared her for talk shows:

“The secret is being able to listen and not think ahead.”

Henderson says she wouldn't substitute for Johnny Carson for two years because:

“He was so aggressive.”

She says she'd developed a hostility toward the show.

Eventually she came to understand that Carson was going through a difficult period and no longer held it against him.

Reed asks about her future. Henderson says she wants variety: dramatic roles, nightclubs, television series, movies. She worries that she's constantly being caught in a particular image.

She says:

“As far as being a big superstar, I don't think that will ever happen.”

Then she discusses the nice-girl image Reed has spent the whole article describing.

She admits:

“That nice-girl image used to bother me because I felt it would limit me.”

But she's decided to make the most of it:

“If that's the image I've got, I'll make the most of it. It hasn't hurt me up to now.”

Henderson's eyes narrow and she says:

“But once in my life—just once—I'd love to play a bitch. I'd be a wonderful bitch.”

And Reed closes:

“Trouble is, who'd believe it?”

From The New York Daily News

The filming of the movie in actually the Transit Museum (the subway cars in the film were way too clean)

Quality for 24 cents and panties for a quarter

I found a partial airing of the Merv Griffin Show from 1985 on a VHS tape (the guest shown here is Joanna Cassidy) and I couldn't help noticing how much Donald Trump likely borrowed from Merv in terms of both his body language and his sense of dress (although Merv wears his clothes much better)

My mom loved the show.

A few new finds that I've saved from being destroyed - I actually don't like the film To Live And Die In LA but I knew it was popular enough that I did have to try to save it. And way back I actually did own the Ab-Isolator and used it for about a year - it did help but not as much as Tony claims.

If you want to torture your animals please play Betty Buckley

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