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 depicted a blended family: a dad with three sons and a mother with three daughters.
Released at a time when divorced parents still carried a great deal of stigma and discrimination, the show demonstrated that non-traditional families existed, although whatever happened to Mike and Carol Brady’s former spouses was never mentioned.
Reed was born John Robert Rietz Jr. 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. After treading the boards in New York, he headed to Los Angeles in the late 1950s 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 his wife, Carol. The studio rejected Hackman because he was not well enough known, and Jones decided to make The Partridge Family instead.
After five series, The Brady Bunch was cancelled. Over the show’s run, Reed reportedly had an antagonistic relationship with the show’s runners, and they had been planning to replace him with another actor if the series had been renewed.
He did return to the role many times in the following years for a series of spin-offs and reunion shows. While Reed may not have loved being Mike Brady, he is one of the best-known dads on the planet.
After the show wrapped, Reed received 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 went on to receive 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 Five-O, 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 had 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 doctors noted that his HIV status was a contributing factor.
