‘The Brady Bunch’ Star Maureen McCormick Described Her and Eve Plumb Drinking as Teens: ‘We Could Have Called Ourselves the Boozy Bunch’
The Brady Bunch amassed a huge fan base over the years, and Maureen McCormick was extremely memorable as Marcia Brady. McCormick recounted her experience on the show in her memoir, Here’s the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice. And she discusses friendships, romance, and everything in between that happened on the set.
McCormick also wrote about an incident involving herself and fellow actor Eve Plumb (Jan Brady). The two started to rebel and drink together after filming.
Maureen McCormick was ready for more mature roles on ‘The Brady Bunch’
McCormick was just 13 years old when she started the show, and she spent many of her formative years on the set of The Brady Bunch. By the time she was late in her teenage years, she was ready for more mature roles. And she didn’t think production was adapting well to the aging characters.
In her autobiography, McCormick wrote, “… we also wanted more mature scripts. Barry [Williams] and I still played kids living at home even though he was 19 and I was 17. It was as if we lived in a time bubble. It was 1972! Our home was untouched by the world around us.”
McCormick noted the Brady Bunch writers could’ve easily adapted their story lines to fit the ages of the characters appropriately, too. “Imagine if the writers had dealt with Greg worrying about the draft, Carol and Mike spicing up their sex life by skinny-dipping with the neighbors, Marcia hiding a boy in her bedroom, or Jan staying out all night after seeing a rock concert,” she wrote.
McCormick and Eve Plumb drank and rebelled together
While show creators had their own plans when it came to how The Brady Bunch would continue, McCormick decided to take matters into her own hands with Plumb. She and Plumb had become quite close and even started to drink together.
“Eve and I shared a room,” McCormick wrote in her book regarding a special cruise for the show. “We drank rum and Cokes on board the ship, and once in Europe, we enjoyed wine. We could have called ourselves the Boozy Bunch.”
McCormick and Plumb’s rebellious streak didn’t end there. “I rebelled quietly by taping a show without wearing a bra,” she wrote. “I convinced Eve to go braless, too. It was also our subtle way of telling the producers we were too old for the same stuff.”
Did McCormick and Plumb have a feud from ‘The Brady Bunch’?
There are plenty of rumors to suggest McCormick and Plumb had a difficult relationship while working together as teens. But it seems that might not actually be the case. Plumb reassured E! News years later that she and McCormick never had to repair their relationship because it was never broken.
“There was no [feud] — People like to say things,” Plumb said. “There was no remedy needed.”
Plumb also added that she felt like her co-stars were her family. “You know, we’re all grown-up now, obviously, and we all get along like real people,” she said.
The Brady Bunch will continue to delight audiences for years to come, as old episodes still show on TV and streaming services. “It’s never really been off the air, in one way or another, but the reason that is is because they don’t have to pay us residuals,” Plumb laughed to E! News. “So it’s kind of cheap show to air.”
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