25-04-2025
‘Brady Bunch' Star Reveals She 'Almost Died' Filming Pilot Episode in 1968
A star from The Brady Bunch revealed she was seriously injured while filming the pilot episode of the ABC sitcom more than 55 years ago.
During an appearance on The Real Brady Bros podcast, former child star Susan Olsen recalled a dangerous incident that occurred while she was shooting a scene for the episode 'The Honeymoon' in 1968 when she was 7 years old.
While speaking with her co-stars Christopher Knight and Barry Williams, Olsen, who played youngest child Cindy Brady in the classic series, said the scary moment took place as she was getting body makeup applied to her legs. 'I got injured,' Olsen said. 'I almost died.'
"I was standing on a makeup chair and something from the catwalk, where they keep all the lights and everything, fell," Olsen explained. "It hit the makeup man first, [bounced] off the body makeup woman, and hit me in the face."
Olsen said her injuries are visible in the scene where her TV parents (Florence Henderson, Robert Reed) get married. "You can tell, if you look at the ceremony and you see the three girls on one side, if you were to zoom in really tight, you can see my face is quite swollen," Olsen said. "I look different. You can even see it in some of the early publicity shots.'
Olsen also recalled that Henderson told producers, 'That hit that little girl really hard.' But everyone on set said Olsen was 'fine,' so she held back tears before being taken off set for medical treatment.
"The saddest news is that we didn't sue Paramount, because I would have made more off of that than the show," she cracked on the podcast.
Olsen said she reported to work the next day with a swollen nose and two black eyes. Makeup guru Hal King (I Love Lucy) was brought in as a "specialist" to cover her injuries with makeup.
Olsen wasn't the only Brady to suffer an injury during filming. In 1972, Williams, who played eldest sibling Greg on the sitcom, wiped out while shooting a surfing scene for the infamous Hawaii episodes.
In his book Growing Up Brady: I Was a Teenage Greg, Williams revealed that he lost control of his surfboard and 'flew through the air' toward an exposed coral head. After he wiped out, his feet "got turned into hamburger meat,' Williams wrote.
The real-life accident footage was shown on The Brady Bunch episode 'Hawaii Here We Come.'
