Robert Reed is best known for playing Mike Brady, the dad on the long running television series The Brady Bunch.
The show ran from 1969 until 1974 and showed a blended family, a dad with three sons and a mother with three daughters.
Released at a time when divorced parents still carried a lot of stigma and discrimination, the show showed that were non-traditional families, although what ever happened to Mike and Carol Brady’s former spouses was never mentioned.
Reed was born John Robert Rietz junior in Chicago, he was an only child who grew up in Texas and Oklahoma.
He studied acting at Northwestern University and briefly attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London too. After treading the boards in New York, he headed to Los Angles in the late 1950 to pursue a screen career.
After appearing in episodes of Father Knows Best, Men Into Space and Lawman, he landed his first regular role in the series The Defenders. In 1964 he returned to New York for his Broadway debut, replacing Robert Redford in Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park.
Originally producers had hoped to cast Gene Hackman as Mike Brady and Shirley Jones as wife Carol. The studio rejected Hackman because he wasn’t well enough known and Jones decided to make The Partridge Family instead.
After five series of The Brady Bunch was cancelled. Over the shows run Reed reportedly had an antagonistic relationship with the show’s runners, and they’d been planning to replace him with another actor if they’d been renewed.
He did return to the role many times in the following years for a series of spin-offs and reunions shows. While Reed may not have loved being Mike Brady – he’s one of the best known dads on the planet.
After the show wrapped Reed got acclaim for a guest role in a two-part episode of Medical Center in 1975. He played a doctor who comes out as transgender. It earned him an Emmy nomination, and he’d go one to get two more for his work in Roots and Rich Man Poor Man.
He made many appearances in popular shows in the following years turning up in The Love Boat, Hawaii 5-0, Wonder Woman, Charlie’s Angels and Battlestar Galactica.
Reed died on this day in 1992, one of the many people lost to HIV/AIDS. He kept his sexuality a secret from the public, but after his death his castmates shared that they’d all known he was gay for many years.
He was 59 years old when he passed. HIs death was due to a rare form of colorectal cancer, but doctor’s noted his HIV status was a contributing factor to his death.
