Early life

Henderson, the youngest of ten children, was born on February 14, 1934, in Dale, Indiana, a small town in the southwestern part of the state. Henderson is a daughter of Elizabeth (née Elder), a homemaker, and Joseph Henderson, a tobacco sharecropper. She is of Irish Catholic ancestry. During the Great Depression, she was taught to sing at the age of two by her mother, who had a repertoire of fifty songs. By the time she was eight, her family called her "Florency", and by age twelve, she was singing at local grocery stores. Henderson graduated from St. Francis Academy in Owensboro, Kentucky, in 1951; shortly thereafter, she went to New York City, enrolling in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She is an Alumna Initiate of the Alpha Chi chapter of Delta Zeta sorority.

Career

Henderson started her career on the stage, performing in musicals, such as the touring production of Oklahoma! and South Pacific at Lincoln Center. She debuted on Broadway in the musical Wish You Were Here in 1952, and later starred on Broadway in the long-running 1954 musical, Fanny (888 performances) in which she originated the title role. Henderson along with Bill Hayes did the Oldsmobile commercials from 1958 through 1961 on The Patti Page Show which Oldsmobile was the sponsor. Henderson also appeared on Broadway in The Girl Who Came to Supper (1963). In 1962, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre, and the same year became the first woman to guest host The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. She also joined the ranks of what was then called "The Today Girl" on NBC's long running morning show, doing weather and light news, a position also once held by Barbara Walters.

Her most widely seen role was as Carol Brady in The Brady Bunch which aired on ABC from 1969 until 1974. Henderson's best friend, Shirley Jones, had previously turned down the role as at the time she wasn't ready to do a TV series and she needed to spend more time with her family.

Primarily owing to her role in The Brady Bunch, Henderson was ranked by TV Land and Entertainment Weekly as No. 54 on their list of the 100 Greatest TV Icons.

Henderson was a frequent panelist on the original version of the television game show Hollywood Squares and made occasional appearances on The $25,000 Pyramid.

Henderson was the spokeswoman for Wesson cooking oil from 1976 to 1996. During that time, she hosted a cooking show on TNN called Country Kitchen, and also did ads for Prange's, a former Wisconsin department store chain. Henderson co-hosted the talk show Later Today on NBC (1999-2000) with co-hosts Jodi Applegate and Asha Blake. In the 2000s, she was the spokeswoman for Polident denture cleanser. In 2003, Henderson seemed to poke fun at her wholesome image by appearing in a Pepsi Twist television commercial with Ozzy Osbourne.

Henderson has also appeared with her TV children, as with Christopher Knight on the reality television series My Fair Brady. She is also in the sixth season of VH1's The Surreal Life.

In most years since the mid-1990s, the song "God Bless America" has been performed by Henderson at the Indianapolis 500 accompanied by the Purdue All-American Marching Band, at the request of the Hulman-George family, the owners of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and friends of Henderson's.

She appeared in the "Weird Al" Yankovic video for "Amish Paradise" and co-hosted the daily talk show Living Live with former Designing Women star Meshach Taylor on Retirement Living TV. The show was reworked to focus on her and was renamed The Florence Henderson Show. In 2002, she made a memorable guest appearance on improvisational comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, participating in on-screen kisses with Ryan Stiles and Colin Mochrie.

Since 2008, Henderson has been the host of her own television series, The Florence Henderson Show, which airs on RLTV (Retirement Living TV). The show was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2010. In May 2010, Henderson did a series of promotional radio ads for Fox. On the July 12, 2010 edition of WWE Raw, Henderson appeared as the night's guest host.

Henderson was one of twelve celebrities competing on the eleventh season of Dancing with the Stars which premiered on September 20, 2010. Her professional partner was Corky Ballas. On October 19, 2010, she was eliminated from the show after receiving the lowest combined total of judges' scores and viewer votes.

Henderson made a special appearance on May 11, 2012 in a special Mother's Day episode on The Price Is Right with Drew Carey, displaying prizes as well as one of the showcases.

In February 2013, Henderson began hosting her own cooking show, Who's Cooking with Florence Henderson, on RLTV.

Personal life

In the mid-1950s, Henderson was diagnosed with a bone deformation of the middle ear, and she had to have surgery to prevent deafness (later she was made an honorary member of the Delta Zeta sorority, which does work for the House Ear Institute and the hearing impaired).

Henderson married Ira Bernstein in January 1956, and the couple had four children. During the filming of The Brady Bunch in Los Angeles, Henderson returned to the family's New York home each weekend to spend time with her children. In her autobiography Life Is Not A Stage, she acknowledges her occasional infidelity during her marriage to Bernstein, including an affair with then-New York City Mayor, John Lindsay, who the actress claims gave her crab lice. She divorced Bernstein in 1985 after almost 29 years of marriage. She later married John Kappas, a hypnotherapist and founder of the Hypnosis Motivation Institute, whom she met while battling depression in the mid-1980s; Kappas died in 2002. Henderson studied hypnotherapy and is a certified hypnotherapist.

Since the 2000s, she has been a more public benefactor of the Sisters of St. Benedict in Ferdinand, Indiana; some of the nuns were her teachers during her early education. She has appeared in a number of their promotional videos and has helped in fund-raising efforts. She has won money for the Sisters on the game show Weakest Link and on a classic-television-themed episode of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire in 2001, winning $32,000 in their name. On the show Henderson used her son Joseph as a Phone-a-Friend lifeline for the $64,000 question on a question about laser colors and answered correctly; she got the $125,000 question wrong, however, and lost $32,000. When Henderson appeared on the The Surreal Life, she made a point of showing respect for the Catholic Church and the Sisters of St. Benedict by refusing to dress in a nun's costume for a comedy skit.

Works

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1954	General Foods 25th Anniversary Show: A Salute to Rodgers and Hammerstein	Laurey	TV Movie
1956	I Spy	Nymph	Episode: "The Abbe and the Nymph"
1957-58	The U.S. Steel Hour		Episodes: "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1957) and "A Family Alliance" (1958)
1958-59	Sing Along
1958	Little Women	Meg March
1958-62	Tonight Starring Jack Paar	Herself	Regular guest
1959	Oldsmobile Music Theatre		Canceled after a few months
1959	The Bell Telephone Hour
1959-60	The Today Show	Herself	Today Girl
1962-67	Password	Herself	Contestant
1963	Discovery '63
1968	The Dean Martin Show		Guest appearance
1969-74	The Brady Bunch	Carol Ann Brady	117 episodes
1970	A World Of Love - Celebrating UNICEF		CBS Special Broadcast
1976	The Love Boat		pilot for series
1976	The Muppet Show	Herself	Episode: "Florence Henderson"
1976	The Paul Lynde Halloween Special	Herself
1976-77	The Brady Bunch Hour	Carol Ann Brady	9 episodes
1981	The Brady Girls Get Married	Carol Ann Brady	TV reunion movie
1981	The Love Boat	Annabelle Folker	Episode: "Country Cousin Blues"
1981	The Brady Brides	Carol Ann Brady	TV series; canceled after 10 episodes
1982	Police Squad!	Shot woman	Episode: "Rendezvous at Big Gulch (Terror in the Neighborhood)"
1982-85	The $25,000 Pyramid	Herself	Contestant
1983	Alice	Sarah James	Episode: "It Had to Be Mel"
1985-86	The $100,000 Pyramid	Herself	Contestant
1985-93	Country Kitchen	Herself	Host
1986, 1990	Murder, She Wrote	Maria Morgana / Patti Sue Diamond	2 episodes
1986	L.A. Law	Margaret Flanagan
1987	It's Garry Shandling's Show		Guest appearance
1987	Just a Regular Kid: An AIDS Story	Ellen Casio	After school special
1988	A Very Brady Christmas	Carol Ann Brady	TV movie
1990	The Bradys	Carol Ann Brady	TV series; canceled after six episodes. Also sang third version of theme song
1993-95	Dave's World	Maggie	Occasional; Beth's mother
1994	Roseanne	Flo Anderson	Episode: "Suck Up or Shut Up"
1995	Fudge	Muriel	Episode: "Fudge-a-mania"
1995-96	Our Generation	Herself	Co-host
1996	Ellen	Madeline	Episode: "Joe's Kept Secret"
1998-2000	Short-cut Cooking	Herself	Host
1999-2000	Later Today	Herself	Presenter
2000	The King of Queens	Lily	Carrie Heffernan's stepmother Episode: "Dark Meet"
2001	Legend of the Candy Cane	Thelma	Voice role
2001	Weakest Link	Herself	Contestant Episode: "The Brady Bunch Episode"
2001	Who Wants to Be a Millionaire	Herself	Contestant
2002	Mom's on Strike	Betty	TV movie
2002	Speaking of Women's Health	Herself	Guest, discussing her battle with osteoporosis
2002	Whose Line Is It Anyway?	Herself	Guest appearance
2003	Mrs. America	Herself	Host
2003	Intimate Portrait: Florence Henderson	Herself	Interviewee
2003	The 26th Annual Kennedy Center Honors: A Celebration of the Performing Arts	Herself	Special appearance
2006	The Surreal Life	Herself	Cast member
2007	The Ellen DeGeneres Show	Herself	Guest appearance
2007	Living Live	Herself	Co-host with Meshach Taylor
2006	Loonatics Unleashed	Mallory "Mastermind" Casey	2 episodes
2008	Ladies of the House	Rose Olmstead	TV movie
2008-present	The Florence Henderson Show	Herself	Host
2009	Samantha Who	Loretta	Guest appearance
2010	WWE Raw	Herself	Guest host
2010	Dancing with the Stars	Herself	Contestant
2012	The Cleveland Show	Nanny Barbara	Episode: "The Men in Me"
2012	The Living Room		Guest appearances
2012	Handy Manny	Aunt Ginny	Episode: "Handy Manny and the Seven Tools"
2012	Matchmaker Santa	Peggy	TV Movie
2012	Happily Divorced	Elizabeth	Episode: "Meet the Parents"
2012	30 Rock	Herself	Episode: "My Whole Life Is Thunder"
2013-present	Who's Cooking with Florence Henderson	Herself	Host

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1970	Song of Norway	Nina Grieg
1992	Shakes the Clown	The Unknown Woman
1994	Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult		Cameo
1995	The Brady Bunch Movie	Grandma (Carol's mother)	Cameo
1996	For Goodness Sake II	Video store customer
1998	Holy Man		Cameo
1999	Get Bruce	Herself	Documentary
2003	Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star	Herself
2008	For Heaven's Sake	Sarah Miller
2010	The Christmas Bunny	Betsy Ross
	Venus & Vegas	Carmen
2011	The Family Group
2013	Young One
2016	Fifty Shades of Black	Mrs. Robinson

Stage

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1949	Carousel	Carrie Pepperidge
1952	Wish You Were Here	The New Girl
1952	Oklahoma!	Laurey
1953	The Great Waltz	Resi
1954	Fanny	Fanny
1961-62, 1968, 1978	The Sound of Music	Maria Rainer
1963-64	The Girl Who Came to Supper	Mary Morgan
1965	The King and I	Anna
1966	Jerome Kern's Theatre
1967	South Pacific	Nellie Forbush
1974, 1981	Annie Get Your Gun	Annie Oakley
1978	Bells Are Ringing
1989	Alone Together

Awards

• 2008: Gracie Awards
• 2012: Gracie Awards

Charities

Florence Henderson supports the following charitable causes: Hearing Impairment, Children.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]