Florence Henderson Almost Missed ‘Brady Bunch’ Audition, Got Awful Help From ‘Star Trek’

The stars align as they’re meant to, but sometimes they choose the most bewildering, sometimes outright alarming way to line up. Florence Henderson is today known as Carol Brady in The Brady Bunch, but everything that could possibly go wrong did go wrong on her journey to her audition, and the reprieve she received from Star Trek was helpful but horrifying.

Boasting a career spanning over six decades, Henderson was 82 when she died in 2016 from heart failure. She captivated audiences on the stage, film, and TV, though she almost opted to not even try out for the role that made her a household name. Why?

Florence Henderson almost missed out completely on a ‘Brady Bunch’ audition

A few different actors have brought the same Brady to life across different entries in the franchise; even Carol has had this treatment, with Shelley Long playing the matriarch in The Brady Bunch Movie, A Very Brady Sequel, and The Brady Bunch in the White House. Even so, it’s difficult to imagine anyone else as Carol Brady besides Florence Henderson.

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Well, before she landed the role, it was hard for Henderson to imagine even pursuing the role of Carol Brady in the first place. At the time, she had landed steady enough work as a nightclub singer in Texas, and committing to anything like The Brady Bunch seemed unfeasible. So, she initially declined the audition. However, after some calendar gymnastics, she made that phase of the casting process work.

The universe, however, was not on the same, new page Henderson had resigned herself to.

Florence Henderson had to boldly go where no other sitcom mom had gone before and got help from ‘Star Trek’

She managed to adjust her schedule and made the voyage from Texas to LA, but Henderson soon found herself in the City of Angels with limited resources. The screen test would require Henderson to put her best foot forward, the better to help execs see that this was their woman. However, there was no one available to provide her with a quality makeover.

Henderson got creative. Very creative. She turned to the team at Star Trek, boarded the USS Enterprise, and got help from the sci-fi show’s makeup team.

“I was sitting in a makeup chair between William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and like six or eight space monsters,” she recalled. “None of them had any idea who I was or made any attempt to be friendly, which really bugged me. Anyway, this makeup guy proceeded to put makeup on me which was absolutely unbelievable. Put it this way: Mr. Spock ended up looking more attractive than I did. It was awful!”

So awful—and, in Henderson’s opinion, far too overdone than anything Carol Brady would wear—she genuinely feared for her job prospects if she went to the screen test with that makeover.

So, she took a candid approach when speaking with series creator Sherwood Schwartz. She recounted, “I went to the Brady soundstage and I said to Sherwood, ‘Look, I just want you to know that I think this makeup is all wrong for Carol Brady, or any other living human creature. So remember, when you see these eyelashes flapping around in the breeze, I think they look stupid too.’”

But that kind of commentary actually assured Schwartz that Henderson had a sharp eye for humor and gave her a huge boost to her audition. So huge, in fact, that Henderson maintained the role of Carol Brady across five television seasons and five films. Knowing when to give credit when it’s due, Henderson mused, “Maybe I should thank that terrible makeup man because, in a way, his botch job helped me get the part.”