Susan Olsen revealed she “almost died” while filming the first episode of “The Brady Bunch” as Cindy Brady.
Olsen was joined by three of her co-stars — Mike Lookinland, Christopher Knight and Barry Williams — for a re-watch of “The Honeymoon.” They discussed the first day of filming the iconic pilot episode that aired in 1969.
“On the Culver lot, they were shooting something — I would assume, in the girl’s bedroom — and I was getting body makeup on my legs,” Olsen said during a podcast episode of “The Real Brady Bros.” “I was standing on a makeup chair and something from the catwalk, where they keep all the lights and everything, fell.”
“It hit the makeup man first, [bounced] off the body makeup woman, and hit me in the face.”
‘BRADY BUNCH’ ACTOR ADMITS ROMANCE WITH CO-STAR WAS ‘ON-AGAIN, OFF-AGAIN’ FOR YEARS
“You can tell, if you look at the [wedding] ceremony, and you see the three girls on one side, if you were to zoom in really tight, you can see my face is quite swollen,” Olsen explained. “I look different. You can even see it in some of the early publicity shots. You can tell my face is a little swollen.”
Florence Henderson, who starred as Carol Brady, was there to comfort Olsen and make sure everyone knew that the young actress had been injured. However, everyone else around insisted she was fine.
Olsen recalled thinking at the time, “I don’t want to be brave. In fact, I don’t just wanna cry, I want to sob. I’m just gonna let go and forget all my pride and just sob because this hurts.”
She ended up putting on a brave face and held back her tears.
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Olsen’s mom took her to the doctor, but the family chose not to take legal action.
“The saddest news is that we didn’t sue Paramount, because I would have made more off of that than the show,” Olsen joked. “But I came to work the next day. Florence was the first one to see me. She’s like, ‘You make sure everybody sees her.’ And my mom was like, ‘Oh, yes, I will.’ Because everybody was trying to say, ‘It didn’t really hit her. She’s fine.'”
“My eyes were black. I mean, I had two black eyes. My nose was swollen. My face was swollen,” she said. “I remember loving it, because I looked like I was in a horror film. And then everybody knew, yes, I had gotten hurt, and I had gotten hurt very badly.”
Paramount brought out Hal King, the makeup artist who did Lucille Ball’s makeup, to cover up her bruises. King also worked with Henderson for the entirety of filming for “The Brady Bunch.”
The cover-up of Olsen’s injury must have worked great because her male co-stars didn’t even notice. “Didn’t know anything about that,” Knight said during the podcast.
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“The Brady Bunch” aired from 1969 to 1974. The show starred Henderson and Robert Reed as the mom and dad, Carol and Mike Brady, who shared a blended family of three boys and three girls from previous marriages.
The sitcom followed the family’s life, showcasing adventures and more.
