Maureen McCormick To Compete On ‘Dancing With The Stars’: What Her ‘Brady Bunch’ Castmates Said About The Show
Maureen McCormick is the latest Brady Bunch star to head to Dancing With the Stars. While ABC has not officially announced the DWTS Season 23 cast, ET Online has confirmed that the now 60-year-old former child star will join the upcoming season of the celebrity ballroom competition.
The Dancing With the Stars Instagram page also dropped several casting clues that clearly point to McCormick. A post on the page teased that pro dancer Artem Chigvintsev’s celebrity partner “is a published author, released a country album, and started acting when she was 9. ”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BJjCDkgDY0V/
Before she landed the career-defining role as eldest daughter Marcia Brady on the 1970s sitcom The Brady Bunch, McCormick made her acting debut at age 9 in the 1965 movie The Farmer’s Daughter. Maureen McCormick also released a country album, When You Get a Little Lonely, in 1995 and published her tell-all memoir, Here’s the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice, in 2009.
Flo and Mo! Such amazing memories?? pic.twitter.com/eGfEid0XsG
— Maureen McCormick (@MoMcCormick7) August 17, 2016
While Maureen McCormick is set to compete for the DWTS mirrorball trophy, she once said she wasn’t sure if she was cut out for Dancing with the Stars. Maureen previously told Entertainment Weekly that she checks with her daughter, Natalie, before agreeing to sign on to certain shows.
“I’ve gotten some [reality show] offers, but nothing that I’ve wanted to do,” Maureen said at the time.
“It’s funny, I ask my daughter every time, ’cause she knows all of the reality shows. I always ask her, ‘Is this going to embarrass you? Is this a good one or not?’ She steered me away from The Surreal Life.”
Brady Bunch fans will be thrilled to see Maureen McCormick on DWTS (we can only hope for a Marcia Brady football-to-the-nose reenactment), but her TV sister, Eve Plumb, once said she probably would never agree to do the show.
“It’s pretty tough,” Plumb told OK Magazine. “I don’t think I’m a good dancer.”
Eve Plumb—aka Jan Brady—just made a big profit on a #Malibu home she bought at 11 years old: https://t.co/jtx6LYTjJN pic.twitter.com/vr3dzkmeNX
— Mansion Global (@MansionGlobal) August 17, 2016
Still, Plumb did offer her support when her Brady Bunch mom, Florence Henderson, competed on Dancing With the Stars in 2010. Plumb told Broadway.com she was upset when Florence was eliminated from the competition after dancing to The Brady Bunch theme in a week dedicated to television theme songs.
“I have been watching [Dancing with the Stars], and she’s been working so hard and doing so well,” Plumb said. “I didn’t see the part where she got kicked off, and I’m glad I didn’t because it makes me mad. She’s great.”
Unfortunately, Maureen McCormick may not get Eve Plumb’s support during her DWTS stint –- the two women are reportedly not on speaking terms after a joke Maureen made years ago — so she may have to rely on her younger TV sister, played by Susan Olsen.
When Henderson was competing on DWTS, she singled out Olsen, who played pigtailed Cindy Brady, as one of her biggest supporters.
“Susan Olsen — she’s using every phone she’s got,” Florence told Access Hollywood.“Cindy votes. She’s my baby.”
?#HappyBirthday To #SusanOlsen: Best known for her role as Cindy Brady in the television sitcom The Brady Bunch.? pic.twitter.com/E1ccZ59hOV
— One Y Films ? (@OneYFilms) August 14, 2016
Henderson also said her oldest TV son, Barry Williams, who played Greg, would make a great DWTS cast member.
“Barry Williams is a good dancer,” Florence said. “He would be [great].”
Indeed, Williams once said he would be he would be “perfect” for DWTS.
“I have not been asked,” Williams previously told Pop Matters. “I have been declined a couple of times. I put it out there. I think I’m perfect for the show. I think I’m a lot better known than most of the people on that show. And I’d have a ball doing it.”
Greg and Marcia! @Greg_Brady_ @Marcia_Brady_ pic.twitter.com/snSlS3L3w7
— Cindy Brady (@Cindy_Brady6) May 7, 2013
At the time, Williams said the executive producer of DWTS (then, Conrad Green) was from England and the classic ABC sitcom didn’t play there the way it did in the U.S., so the producer “sort of doesn’t get the following for the Brady thing.”
With any luck, Maureen McCormick will reunite with Williams while she’s on Dancing With the Stars. While they played siblings on the classic sitcom, in real life, Maureen McCormick and Barry Williams dated. Williams, who still performs a cabaret act and works in musical theater, actually made a cameo on Florence Henderson’s season of DWTS to give his TV mom some tango tips.
Maureen McCormick will make her debut on Dancing With the Stars on September 12 on ABC.
[Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for TV Land]