What To Know
- Eve Plumb revealed the residual pay that The Brady Bunch child stars receive.
- Barry Williams noted in his memoir the highest weekly salary for child actors.
- The Brady Bunch speculated on one reason for the show’s enduring popularity.
The Brady Bunch star Eve Plumb recently revealed the shocking residual pay the cast members receive more than 50 years after the beloved sitcom ended.
In her new memoir, Happiness Included: Jan Brady and Beyond, released on April 28, Plumb offered brutally honest insight into the money she receives from the show today.
“If I had a dime for every rerun episode, I’d pay off the national deficit,” the actress behind Jan wrote in her book’s intro, per Page Six. “I don’t.”
She echoed this matter-of-fact revelation during an April interview with PauseRewind, pointing out, “We don’t make residuals,” per KOMO News.
In May, Plumb reflected on her time on The Brady Bunch — including why she thinks the show’s popularity endures today — during an interview with WGN News.
“That’s why it’s been on for 40 years, I think, because they don’t have to spend money on residuals,” she speculated. “It was [a different time]. The contract only allowed for 10 runs of each episode. And there was no cable, and there was no rerunning, so it sounded like a good deal.”
Barry Williams (who played Greg Brady) also offered insight into the salaries he and his fellow child stars made on The Brady Bunch in his 1992 memoir.
“Salaries for sitcom actors have changed considerably since the ‘70s,” he wrote in Growing Up Brady: I Was a Teenage Greg, per Cracked. “In our fifth and final year, the highest salary among us kids was $1,100 a week.”
He noted that the highest-earning Brady Bunch child actors brought in a little more than $24,000 in the final 22-episode season.
“Take into consideration agent commissions, taxes, and the fact that some of the kids were expected to contribute to their families,” Williams pointed out. “It was enough to indulge in toys, but hardly enough to carry you through the slow periods that inevitably followed.”
The Brady Bunch aired for five seasons from 1969 to 1974. In addition to Plumb and Williams, the sitcom starred Maureen McCormick as Marcia, Susan Olsen as Cindy, Christopher Knight as Peter, and Mike Lookinland as Bobby. It also starred Robert Reed as Mike Brady, Florence Henderson as Carol Brady, and Ann B. Davis as Alice.
Plumb’s memoir, Happiness Included: Jan Brady and Beyond, is now available for purchase.
The Brady Bunch, streaming on Paramount+ and Pluto TV
