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Florence Henderson, who went from Broadway star to become one of America's most beloved television moms in 

, has died, her manager and her publicist said. She was 82.


Henderson died Thursday night at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, after being hospitalized the day before, said her publicist, David Brokaw. Henderson had suffered heart failure, her manager Kayla Pressman said in a statement.

Family and friends had surrounded Henderson's hospital bedside, Pressman said.

 with Henderson as its ever-cheerful matriarch Carol Brady, resembled just another TV sitcom about a family living in suburban America and getting into a different wacky situation each week.
But well after it ended its initial run, in 1974, the show resonated with audiences, and it returned to television in various forms again and again, including 

 in 1990. It was also seen endlessly in reruns.


"It represents what people always wanted: a loving family. It's such a gentle, innocent, sweet show, and I guess it proved there's always an audience for that," Henderson said in 1999.

Premiering in 1969, it also was among the first shows to introduce to television the blended family. As its theme song reminded viewers each week, Henderson's Carol was a single mother raising three daughters when she met her TV husband, Robert Reed's Mike Brady, a single father who was raising three boys.

, with a quirky housekeeper, played by Ann B. Davis, thrown into the mix.
The blonde, ever-smiling Henderson was already a Broadway star when the show began, having originated the title role in the musical 

, she would always be known to fans as Carol Brady.


"We had to have security guards with us. Fans were hanging on our doors. We couldn't go out by ourselves. We were like the Beatles!" she said of the attention the show brought the cast.


Like the Beatles, there was even a Saturday morning cartoon version called 

, although Henderson was not in that show.
She and Reed did return, however, for 

. So did most of the original cast.
She was also back again in 1995 when a new cast was assembled for 

, a playful spoof of the original show. This time she was Grandma Brady opposite Shelly Long's Carol. Numerous memoirs also kept interest in the show alive, as cast members revealed they were more than just siblings off camera. Barry Williams, who played eldest son Greg Brady, would confess to having a crush on his TV stepmom. Henderson, in her own book, denied having any relationship with Williams, but did acknowledge a fling with former New York City mayor John Lindsay.
Henderson was a 19-year-old drama student in New York when she landed a one-line role in the play 

.
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were so impressed they made her the female lead in a 1952 road tour of 

 When the show returned to Broadway for a revival in 1954, she continued in the role and won rave reviews.

 "She is the real thing, right of of a butter churn somewhere," wrote Walter Kerr of the 

To broaden her career, Henderson took acting, dancing, singing and guitar lessons, even studying French and Italian.


She went on to play Maria in a road production of 

 and was back on Broadway with Jose Ferrer in 

 in 1963.
She made her movie debut in 1970 in 

, based on the 1944 operetta with music by Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg.
Her career nearly came to an end in 1965 when she suddenly lost her hearing while appearing in 

 in Los Angeles. She was diagnosed with a hereditary condition called osteosclerosis.
"Corrective surgery in both ears restored my hearing," she said in 2007.

, Henderson also began to make frequent TV guest appearances. She was the first woman to host 

 for the vacationing Johnny Carson.
For eight years she also commuted to Nashville to conduct a cooking and talk series, 

, on The Nashville Network. The show resulted in a book, 

 ended its first run, Henderson alternated her appearances in revivals of the show with guest appearances on other programs, including 

.
In later years she also made guest appearances on such shows as 

Florence Agnes Henderson was born Feb. 14, 1934, in the small town of Dale in southern Indiana. She was the 10th child of a tobacco sharecropper of Irish descent.

In grade school, she joined the choir at a Catholic church in Rockport, Ind.

 After high school she moved to New York, where she enrolled in a two-year program at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, her studies financed by a theatrical couple who had been impressed by her singing when they saw her perform in high school.


She dropped out of the program after one year, however, to take the role in 

Henderson married theater executive Ira Bernstein and the couple had four children before the union ended in divorce after 29 years.

Her second husband, John Kappas, died in 2002.

Arts and Culture

The Associated Press

Author

The actress was 82. She was one of the stars of the popular 1970s show about single parents who marry and raise six kids. It played for decades in reruns.

'Brady Bunch' mom Florence Henderson has died

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