6 Secrets from the Brady Vault

Here's the story of how a show started as a typical formulaic sitcom, but grew into a syndicated monster. From the time Greg Brady got high to the reason Cindy Brady started balding, here's a quick rundown of all things Brady you probably didn't know.

1. In Real Life, Jan Gave Marcia the Complex

Maureen McCormick played Marcia, the eldest Brady daughter, and the object of lust of many a teenaged boy during the tenure of The Brady Bunch. What the public didn't know, however, was that "Mo" always felt inferior to Eve Plumb, who played middle sister Jan. Eve had longer, blonder, more luxurious hair. Eve developed curves before Maureen did (and took pleasure in flaunting her blossoming physique by going braless under her tight-fitting tops in later seasons). The very slender Mo also felt that she had a bit of a tummy "pooch" and during the time the entire cast was en route to Hawaii for an exciting "on location" three-part episode, all she could think about was her horror at having to appear on camera in a bikini. Watch those Hawaii episodes when they rerun and you'll see that Maureen always manages to hold a beach towel or robe in front of her lower torso in any bathing suit scenes.

2. Barbershop of Horrors: Why Cindy Started Balding

3. Gene Hackman Almost Played the Lead

4. Greg Brady Liked to Get High

5. The Brady Bunch Might Never Have Made it Without Lucille Ball

Back in 1965, producer Sherwood Schwartz was browsing through the Los Angeles Times when a sidebar caught his eye; it was a "filler piece" statistic box that stated 31% percent of all marriages at that time included a child from a previous relationship. He grabbed a notepad and started scribbling ideas "“- the types of sibling rivalries that could emerge in "blended" families, the problem of a parent showing his "natural" children favoritism, etc. From his notes he developed a concept for a TV series he called Yours and Mine. He shopped his script to the three major networks and was turned down each time. Three years later, United Artists released a film called Yours, Mine and Ours, starring Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda, which told the story of a widow with eight children who married a father of ten. The film did well at the box office, and suddenly ABC was interested in Schwartz's script (then called The Bradley Brood).

6. Robert Reed's Hard Life