Former Brady Bunch star Barry Williams has revealed that the classic sitcom’s producers tried to diversify its cast.
“I know that we’re the whitest show on television, but I do think that there were very deliberate attempts to try and integrate the show,” Williams said on a recent episode of his rewatch podcast, “The Real Brady Bros.”
Williams, 70, and former costar Christopher Knight, who played Greg and Peter Brady on The Brady Bunch, respectively, spoke about producer Sherwood Schwartz‘s attempts to integrate a wider range of characters beyond the Brady family while recapping the season five episode “Miss Popularity.”
Originally airing in December 1973, this installment of The Brady Bunch introduced a Black supporting character, with young actress Jere Fields playing Jan Brady’s school friend Shirley.
“I thought this was nice because this is a young lady of color, and this didn’t happen a lot,” Williams acknowledged on his podcast.
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Williams and Knight later spoke about how Schwartz and the Brady Bunch production team felt it was important that “everyone was represented” in their TV universe.
“There were a couple of episodes that specifically dealt with that, and we see this a lot, especially when there are crowds and then maybe there are two or three friends, we’ll see different ethnicities and etc. So, this is one of those cases, and she’s adorable, and it was fun to see,” the actor added.
Fields continued acting through the 1980s, starring in the 1985 horror blockbuster Friday the 13th: A New Beginning as well as making appearances on TV in Diff’rent Strokes, The Jeffersons and Cheers.
The Brady Bunch used its next season five episode, titled “Kelly’s Kids,” as a backdoor pilot for a potential spinoff based around a more diverse group of characters.
The 1974 episode introduced Mike and Carol Brady’s friends Ken (Ken Berry) and Kathy Kelly (Brooke Bundy), who were planning to adopt a young boy named Matt from a local orphanage.
Ken and Kathy grew so attached to Matt’s friends from the orphanage — an African-American boy named Dwayne and an Asian boy named Steve — that they decided to adopt them as well. The potential series would have tackled racism head-on by having the Kellys’ bigoted neighbor, Mrs. Payne (Molly Dodd), object to a multicultural family living on her block.
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ABC ultimately passed on spinning off “Kelly’s Kids” into its own series, though Brady Bunch creator Schwartz based his 1986 sitcom Together We Stand on the same basic concept.
Williams looked back on the ongoing impact of The Brady Bunch when he spoke to Us Weekly for the show’s 55th anniversary last year.
“I can hardly imagine a more impactful event than being on a popular television series in the early ’70s,” Williams told Us exclusively. “It shaped me in many, many different ways, including dealing with being a recognizable person. And I really owe a lot to [my TV mom] Florence Henderson about that and helping give that a perspective and a respect and an understanding that I might not have had without her guidance.”
The TV icon also opened to Us Weekly about the love lives of the Brady Bunch stars during the show’s heyday, revealing that the teen cast members “all hooked up with each other at some point.”
“I dated Maureen [McCormick], and Chris dated Eve [Plum] and Michael [Lookinland] and Susan [Olsen] had a little mock wedding at one point. So, yes, we all hooked up,” he confirmed.
The Brady Bunch is available to stream on Paramount+, Prime Video and Pluto TV.
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