038 A Lovely Lady transcript (Florence Henderson)

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Amit: This is famous and gravy, an exploration on quality of life as we see it one dead celebrity at a time. Now for the opening quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.

Michael: This person died in 2016, age 82. She starred in Fanny on Broadway in the mid 1950s. She also did national tours of Oklahoma and the Sound of music.

Friend: Ah, I'm gonna have these songs stuck in my head all day. Thank you so much for that. I have to say Julie Andrews.

Michael: Not Julie Andrews. Along with Barbara Walters from 1959 to 1960, she was a so-called Today girl for the Today Show doing fashion stories and other light news segments.

Friend: Barbara Walters did that?

Michael: Yeah.

Friend: Oh my God. , wow. It's like saying Michelle Obama was the weather girl. .

Michael: She was in Bobcat Goldthwait's, shakes the clown, in which she played an unnamed woman who has a one night stand with a title character.

Friend: Never heard of any of that I can say. I know Bobcat Goldthwait. I do not know. Shakes the Clown.

Michael: She starred on an unapologetically upbeat TV comedy about a woman with three daughters who meets Mary's and makes a sunny suburban California home with a widower who has three sons. She played Carol Brady.

Friend: Florence. What the heck is her last name? Henderson Florence Henderson.

Michael: Today's dead celebrity is Florence Henderson

when it comes to TV moms.

Our next guest is the Queen Mother. Please welcome Florence Henderson. Here's the story. A lovely lady who is bringing up three. Very lovely, you're a dream mom. I am so touched by that. And you know, I looked to shows like yours. I really did. And I thought that's sort of a inspirational role model and the kind of mom you wish you had.

So you did so much good for people, not just entertaining, but. Emotionally. It really, it did nurture me. Ever since I first saw you. I always wanted to hug you. Oh. And be your mother, cuz I felt you needed me. Yes, I did. I always did. You know it's true.

Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne.

Amit: I'm Amit Kapoor.

Michael: And on this show we choose a celebrity who died in the last 10 years and reviewed their quality of life. We go through a series of categories to figure out the things in life that we would actually desire and ultimately answer. A big question, would I want that life today?

Florence Henderson died 2016, age 82. Category one, grading the first line of their obituary. Florence Henderson, who began her career as an ingenue soprano in stage musicals in the 1950s, but made a more lasting impression on television as the perky 1970s sitcom. Mom on the Brady Bunch died on Thursday in Los Angeles.

She was 82. Do you know if I pronounced au correctly?

Amit: Did you look it up beforehand?

Michael: Goddamn right. I did. Okay,

Amit: now define it for me. ,

how could you get to the pronunciation without the definition? Because I thought I was gonna fuck that up. So, okay. I've still got it as an open tab here somewhere. The Alan

Rickman Aerody wound is still, yeah, seriously

seeping.

All right. An innocent or unsophisticated woman, especially in a player film.

Interesting. Oh, that's terrible. Unsophisticated. Yeah, they said Anja

Michael: Soprano. Uh, well I think they're talking about a character. She played Anja Soprano. So you're saying it's

Amit: the character that she played, not that she was like straight from Indiana

Michael: to New York City.

Yeah. I mean an Anja new soprano in stage musicals. I assume that was like the character she was cast in like Oklahoma and Sound of Music and you know, a bunch of others. Right. I'm as corny as in, I'm as normal as blueberry. Smart little girl with.

God,

Amit: I'm in a country, but MA's exceptional act.

Michael: Yeah. I mean this was really a career launcher for her. It was. I mean, what's interesting to me is that they mention it at all. I mean, this has come up in a lot of conversations, right? Like Shirley Temple is the one we keep going back to where they only talk about her career as a child star and don't mention her second life as a diplomat.

And I would say Florence Henderson is singularly associated with Carol Brady, and most people don't know about her experience as an Aja new soprano in stage musical. Yeah. Carol Brady was

Amit: in fact her second life.

Michael: Right. So I guess it feels like, you know, one thing is. Far outweighing. The other thing, in this first line of the obituary,

Amit: normally you and I are talking about like, oh, how could they like not even tip a hat?

Yeah. To the fact that she or he accomplished

Michael: so and so. Right. It stood out to me for that reason, but let's go through the rest of it. So more lasting impression on television as the perky 1970s sitcom. Mom perky. Let's work on

Amit: that. Yeah. . I read Sassy a lot. They said sassy. Oh, interesting. Which I like more than perky.

Michael: Mrs. Brady, are you suggesting that I am lying? And very badly too. You haven't heard the last of this. I'm gonna sue you. I'll see you in court. My pleasure. You're, I think, more familiar with the Brady Bunch than

Amit: I am fucking a Michael. Every time we talk about like milk toasted pop culture from our childhood, you're like, I was above that.

I was on the shitty. It's not above that. I was on the, I was on the shooting range. I was hiking when I was six .

Michael: That's absolutely not true. I was watching Mr. Ed, thank you very much. And I was watching, you can't do that on television. I was watching all kinds of things. Like I watched the

Amit: Brady Bunch every goddamn day for probably like three summers.

Is that right?

Michael: I think so. Somehow this show missed me. Like I know about it. How can you not know about it? I know the song, but this show did not resonate with me. To go back to Perky, do you take issue with the word perky?

Amit: Yeah. Perky means to me, just like non opinionated, I

Michael: think of it. It almost has like a childish connotation to it, you know, bright but vacant.

You know, vacant is a good word. Yeah. Yeah. That was not our Carol Brady. She had some depth. Yes. Why is sassy a better word here? It just means

Amit: attitude. It's also hints at

Michael: her style. What it's missing is this sort of like loving, you know, a real caretaker. I mean, she's there for the Brady Bunch kids on

the

Amit: TV show, so we need a word between perky and sassy, which also encompasses

Michael: loving and Exactly.

And I don't know what that word is, but, uh, I think we are agreed that perky is less than perfect. All right. So, I mean, those are the words we're messing around here with on your new soprano and then perky 1970s sitcom. Mom. I think I've got my score. Do you wanna go first?

Amit: I will. I wanna point out one thing.

Born on Valentine's Day, died on Thanksgiving. Oh, how about that? So on Janu and Perky, neither of which I like, I do very much like that. They brought in her Broadway career before the Carol Brady career. Yeah. Uh, so I'm going

Michael: seven. Interesting. Okay. I was leaning towards six. I think I'm gonna go even five.

I've got too many problems with this. I don't like that. I didn't know how to say ou like they're showing off there without really telling me enough about what that word means. I also, frankly, have not a, necessarily a favor in favor of the first half of this. And it's overall, I have really come to view the first line of the obituary as a news headline.

I feel like we need to actually get right to the point of why it is notable that Florence Henderson is now dead. Carol Brady has died. That's the headline and they missed the mark with that for me. Okay. Five and a seven. Five and a seven. Category two, five things I love about you here. Amed and I work to come up with five reasons why we ought to be talking about this person.

I've got a handful of things here, but I don't know, do you wanna lead?

Amit: So my number one, uh, I've called today and tonight. So she had this very successful Broadway career, you know, in these productions of, of riders and Hammerstein and all. Like she was working with the Ed Sullivan, Groucho Marx. Yeah. Dean Martin.

Like, I mean, these were heavy, heavy names. This was the definition of top tier performers. Amen. Yes. You know, that catapulted her into, uh, a further showbiz career. So she was a today show. Quote host. Yeah, but I'm gonna put like five quotes around it cause it sounds awful. Yeah. They had what they called today show girls.

Right. So they reported on like light news and fashion in the weather. They just like sat in a corner and giggled and like pointed to clouds. I think that was the idea. Which just sounds terrible. Oh, you're so

Michael: pretty. Hello? Florence. I was just gonna say, you're so cute. Oh, it was 1950s. Yep.

Amit: So that just points like she's this, this is no small feat.

10 years after that, she was the first woman ever to guest host The Tonight Show. That's. That's

Michael: phenomenal. That is phenomenal. I think it had been Jack Parr's show at that point. Yes. And Johnny Carson had very recently taken the helm, but he had not grown it into, you know, the iconic Johnny Carson Tonight Show yet.

Yeah. So that's a pretty

Amit: big deal to go from this today girl to a Tonight Show host. Yeah. Right. And it was also very different roles. Like she was essentially this model on the Today Show, and then she was, you know, a real host. And so I like that. I mean, it's the sixties arc of feminist progress that was embodied in Florence Henderson's talk show career.

Well, that's interesting. And then I'll just capstone the tonight. So also as Mike and Colonel Brady known, You know, reasonably progressive couple. The fact that they were a second marriage portrayed on

Michael: screen blended family. Yeah.

Amit: Yes. And also the first time they ever showed, uh, a couple in bed, couple

Michael: sharing a bed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think what I'm hearing you say is that she's kind of near the front of progress. She's sort of pioneering it. If you envision society and the Marsh Schwartz progress as a sort of inflating balloon, she's right at the edge of that balloon. She's not necessarily inflating it herself, but she's sitting there.

Yeah. And you see that in the character she's portraying and in the hosting she's doing on television, she's

Amit: essentially writing that wave and she's taking those roles. And I think that's important for people that could have seen. And a lot of people did

Michael: see that. A, yeah. You know, that's interesting. I did hear an interview with her where she said, you know, one thing that I'm proud of is my willingness to be.

And she stayed working for all of her life. I mean, she kept finding places to go and things to do, which in a sort of way that really is unique for a lot of women in Hollywood or in entertainment. Right? If that's what you're calling out, then that is absolutely desirable and lovable. Yep. That's your thing, number one.

Yep. Today and tonight. It's a good way of putting it today and tonight. Okay. I'll take this for number two. I think you'll like this. Are you familiar with her experiences with hypnotherapy? Yes. Have you ever been hypnotized? No. Me. But I'm pretty goddamn curious about it. Like definitely one of the things, uh, about, you know, where I am in life right now is that I'm very curious about what betterment and self-help looks like.

Right. Enlarging a spiritual practice, psychoanalysis, taking on creative projects, new activities, new relationships. Like, one of the things I think is very much at the center of Famous and gravy is like brainstorming on what that looks like right now that we're in our forties and, you know, imagining what the rest of life looks like.

Hypnotherapy is one I hadn't really thought of. . It's a bit antiquated, right? It is

Amit: a little bit. Today's

Michael: conversations replaced with like psychedelic. That's what I was gonna say is a lot of people who otherwise might be open to hypno hypnosis are doing psychedelic assisted therapy, I think. Yeah. So those things, two things are probably in competition, but when Florence

Amit: got into it, it was like the ayahuasca of, of the time, perhaps a hundred percent.

Michael: Last time you hear a time before last year we were talking about hypnosis. Yeah. Because you went through a period of, of stage fright. Sage pride and terrible fear flying. So hypnosis helped. Oh, hypnosis helped me so quickly in like five or six sessions, so I would have to know to hypnotize you, I'd have to know your suggestibility.

Which is how you learn information. Yeah. Because if you created it then you can uncreate it. Her experience with it is pretty interesting cuz she engages with it and eventually this is towards the end of her first marriage. We'll get into that. She marries her hypnotherapist

Amit: who is like one of the godfathers of

Michael: hypno.

I understand. And I think we'll talk more about that and love and marriage. And then she goes so far as to learn how to do it herself and performs it for friends. And even talks about doing it for friends at their deathbed. Like when people are passing on, when asked, she is there to hypnotize and sort of deflate the ego in a way that, you know, I think psychedelic assisted therapy is meant to do the same thing.

She said something, uh, in her autobiography about, you know, what she was experiencing when she was going through hypnotherapy. And she said it offered a break from denial. And she heard the phrase, you can't cure anything with a. Which I really like, like, and I've had, I've sat with that. I wanna talk about that for a second cuz I actually, is that true?

Do you think there are things you can cure with a lie? ,

Amit: you know, so they talk about this, I remember taking a class in college called Contemporary Moral Problems. Okay. And it was about this idea of lying, but we're supposed to look at it through taking historical philosophy into contemporary problems.

And one of the questions was, should you ever lie? Like white lies, right? Yeah. And you know, the answer they always give is Anne Frank, you know? Yeah. Like, is it okay to say that there's nobody in the attic? Right. Uh, and so that way, yes, you can cure certain things with a lie. Like you can deflect problems, you can avoid danger.

Yeah. Can you ever. Find your inner self more set free, discomfort in your body, troubles with your past, troubles with your image. Yeah. Troubles with relationships. No,

Michael: I'm with you. I think that phrase, you can't cure anything with a lie is excellent. And so anyway, hypnotherapy, that's my number two. Okay.

Amit: Uh, number three, trusted.

A lot of this was born out of Carol Brady. Yes. Right? Like people definitely loved Carol Brady. So that really just catapulted Florence Henderson into this like very trusted figure. Yeah. She made lots of lists. Like she's the, according to Entertainment Weekly, the 54th most iconic TV personality ever.

Yeah. I mean, that's a big deal. Yahoo, back when it mattered, had her as like the number four TV mom of all time. And the Brady Bunch only ran for five years, but she became a very trusted public figure, which was not artificial. Yeah. Like all of the kids on the Brady Bunch, all of the cast members on it, anyone that she worked with on Broadway.

Really saw her as a confidant. Mm-hmm. . And I think like a lot of the traits that she brought to Carol Brady were really true to her intrinsic nature. Like it's completely different from her background, which we're gonna talk about more. Yeah. But the pure character traits of somebody you can go to and somebody that you trust seems to encompass all of the Florence Henderson.

And I wanna talk about Q scores. Okay. Cause I think this is an interesting subject for possibly you or anybody that doesn't know about it. Yeah. Tell me about Q uh. Cause she ranked in the Wall Street Journal. This was mid two thousands of a survey as she had the fifth highest Q score and a Q score as something I learned about in business school.

Mm-hmm. . Ranks how high their consumer appeal is, meaning how high consumers resonate with them. So this is applied not only to celebrities, it's applied to cartoon characters. I see. And the higher the Q score, the more desirable you are, the more you know people want you to pitch their product, likely, the more you can leverage that.

To get

Michael: paid. So it's a measure of trust, but it's also a measure of sort of embodied values and likability. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And she had fifth highest Q score. Fifth highest Q score

Amit: at Bio Wall Street Journal measure. Wow. And that's a big deal. Like I worked in marketing and peripherally in advertising and like this is a big thing.

I remember some friends that worked at Frito Lay and they were all pissed cuz like Chester Cheetah had a lower Q score than the Aflac duck. Ah. Uh, but this is like real stuff. I mean this is like billion dollar question stuff.

Michael: Yeah, yeah. , I hate that duck, but I, I gotta say I see it. I was only gonna say, I just wanted to add to this thing number three here, cuz I think you are absolutely right that it's not just the character, it is the woman that Florence Henderson herself was a calming presence.

That she works to make people feel welcome. And this was very true on the Brady Bunch. I think the best example of this is her husband on the show, Mike played by Robert Reed, was gay in real life and this comes out much later. She understood that and knew that and suspected that it sounds like well before anybody else on set.

But she tells a story in her autobiography of. Sensing his discomfort with some of the like cuddling scenes and signs of physical affection. And she was proactive in like making that easier and okay for him on set. And it sounds like, you know, she also came to that set as a mother of four. She had already had four children by the time she gets cast as Carol Brady and understood her responsibility to be a parental figure, not just in character but to the kids on the show.

Um, you know, the trustworthiness there also blends into sort of a calming presence. I think she played an essential role in camaraderie and creating an atmosphere of trust in her performances. Yes. And in her stage work. So I'll take the next one, number four. Dragonflies. It's a small thing, but she's got a thing about dragonflies.

Okay, so I'm intrigued. This came up in other episodes where I've talked about, I like when people are looking for signs of meaning and value and spirituality in their lives. So around the time that her second husband dies, she's feeling very, very frustrated with, you know, she's asking herself, how could you leave me this mess?

There's a lawsuit that's hovering. They have a yacht that's a problem for her and a and a house. You know, she's asking for a sign and, and then out of nowhere, I'm reading from her book now, from the sky came, not one, not two, not three, but a whole squadron of dragon flies. They flew down and circled in front of me at the glass door, and then quickly as they appeared, they were gone.

Perhaps I had never paid much attention to them before, but it still seems so unlikely wherever I go. And no matter where I turn, I notice the presence of dragon flies everywhere. Dragonflies are the oldest known living insect. In many cultures, there are a symbol of transformation, renewal, wisdom, and enlightenment.

They bring about the stripping away of all illusions. They're also the keeper of dreams that guide us to our potential. What also resonates for me is the Japanese view of the dragonfly as joyous light that reminds us that we are filled with it if we so choose to recognize it. I don't know shit about dragon flies on it.

I know I like them. I have memories of hiking in the mountains or being near a creek where I've like watched dragon flies and they're like, they're gorgeous. They're really cool, and they're really weird and interesting. And I know deep in earth history, there was like dragon flies that lived in Antarctica that had like five foot wingspans, right?

These gigantic insects of the past. I'm sort of fascinated by 'em. I hadn't thought much of it and kinda like hypnotherapy. I'm glad somebody pointed this out to me. I'm gonna take a deeper interest in dragon flies. I just like the symbolism of it and I'm gonna

Amit: use it. Okay. It's a very Michael Osborne thing to love.

Michael: Yeah. Thanks man. Let me take number five cause I got one more thing I want to add to this. So Florence Henderson grew up poor like depression era, you know, wearing a burlap sack, did not have electricity and running water in the house. Kind of poor kid. Number 10 of 10. Father was a raging alcoholic and mother disappeared from the house and left them around age 12,

Amit: like father was also 67 years old when

he

Michael: had her.

Yes. You know, the rags to riches aspect of Florence Henderson's life is really pretty astonishing. A lot of it became possible because she went to a Catholic school where she became friends with a woman, Ruth Hell, who was from a well to do family and that well to do family paid for Florence's education at the American Academy of Arts.

I think the theater school in New York. She remained friends with this woman throughout her entire life and, I love that. I like those kinds of bonds. I like those kinds of interventions from, especially from non-family members, from friends who like really set your life on a whole new and different trajectory.

And it sounds like they remain close for forever.

Amit: Those are the best, you know, and I think those will be more common as we age, just cause communication has been simpler. Yeah. Especially like people move away and then you just sort of lose touch and somehow it's also un. At a certain point to be like, oh, I'm still friends with my high school friend or my elementary school friend.

Yeah. But that's really rapidly changing cuz I think deep, trusting, long connection is important. Yeah. And this is

Michael: a great early example of it. That's my number five. Okay. All right. So let's recap. So thing number one, you said today and tonight. Today and tonight. Thing number two, I said hypnotherapy. Three.

We talked about trust. Yeah. Trustworthy. Denies. In Q scores four, I had dragon flies and five lifelong friends. Okay. All right. Category three, Melich Malkovich. This category is named after the movie Bing John Malkovich, in which people take a little portal into John Mavis mind and they can have a front row seat to his experiences.

What do you got?

Amit: This is a perfect segue from your number five. Thank you for teeing this up, my dear. All right. So Florence Henderson gets accepted into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and she goes to New York City at age 17 from Dale, Indiana. You know, and you described this depression area that she grew up in, and she's still very much in it.

It's not like she's, she's risen out of it. She's just a good performer and good enough to go to get into the school, which her friend's, family helped pay for. Yeah. So she arrives in New York as she described it, never having left Indiana. She had never seen a building more than two stories tall. And then she arrives in New York City in 1951, and even in New York City in 1951.

Those are some big motherfucking buildings. Yeah. And she said that she was so awestruck that she said she couldn't look up for two weeks, you know, and this is her new home. So that exact moment on arrival is what I love and what I wanna see, and I think a lot of people experience that. At different times, but the word I'm gonna describe to it is transcendence.

Just how big this whole world is. And this opening up of possibility, I think is what I envision was really waking up within her. And it's the first time that you see a natural wonder. It's the first time you ever see the endless ocean. And this is, I think, what Florence Henderson was getting. But for her it was even so much more than that because it's not only, you know, the city of millions of people and massive high rises, but this is also her future.

The awestruck and the intimidation and the combination. I think it's landing on Mars. Yeah. Boy, I would love to be there to feel that newness, that excitement, and that transcendence.

Michael: That's a good. I've had that similar to feelings I've had when I've traveled, you know, culture shock and sort of you awake somewhere like what is going on here and how do I find my way?

And there's a sense of excitement, but also

Amit: fear. That is exactly it. And I think we all have that. We all have bouts of Adam traveling. That's why we travel. Yeah.

Michael: Right? Yeah.

Amit: But for her, it's even more special because of the dramatic shift of going from never seeing anything more than two stories tall to immediately being in New York City.

Mm.

Michael: All right. My malkovich. Mm-hmm. . I went a little simple here. You mentioned before the recording she has a Bismark key like set of cameos in her post Brady career. Like she shows up all over the fricking place doing all kinds of funny things. Yes, this is especially true in the nineties. I don't know if you've watched the 1993 MTV Music Awards clips, but there's the Brady Bunch parroting all these movies from 1993, including Basic Instinct, A Few Good Men and The Bodyguard.

And in the basic Instinct clip, it's really funny cuz she's playing the Sharon Stone character being interrogated in front of the cops with a sexy outfit. Uh, there's no smoking in this building, Mrs. Brady, what are you gonna do? Peter charge me with smoking

my favorite cameo. Well, and then of course shakes the Clown when she sleeps with Bobcat Gold Blade's

Amit: character. I think you need to color what shakes the clown is here.

Michael: Hey buddy, this is my bathroom, not your bedroom. You big drunken mess Billy. Let's give your mother's new boyfriend a chance to collect his thought.

Yeah, it's a hard movie to describe. It's an alcoholic clown who, uh, played by Bobcat Gold Weight, played by Bobcat Gold Weight, and it's a, this looked like cult movie, uh, because it's sort of absurd, just what a raging alcoholic he is. And there's all these scenes of clowns in the bars. I think it's Adam Sandler's first movie.

Robin Williams has an incredible, uh, uh, cameo appearance. None of these are my Malcolm moments. My maich moment, my favorite Florence Henderson cameo from the nineties is when she appeared in the Weird Al Video Amish Paradise. As I walk through the valley where I harvest my grain, I take a look at my wife and realize she's very plain, but that's just perfect for an Amish like me.

You know, I sh fencing things like electricity

Amit: at four

Michael: 30 in the, it takes some work to explain this cameo because Gangstas Paradise had Michelle Pfeiffer in the video because this song by Julio was used in the movie Dangerous Minds. Correct. And in the. Julio Video Julio is wrapping at Michelle Pfeiffer in this sort of shadow room that's got just a little bit of lighting and she's sitting there in a chair listening to Klio Rap, right?

The Amish Paradise with Weird. Al Yankovic has a similar sort of thing where Florence Henderson is sitting in a chair in the shadowy barn and we are, Al Yankovic is got the Amish beard and the Amish hat and is wrapping about Amish Paradise. She's just sitting there. Kind of listening to this and taking it in, and it's, I think, hilarious.

The reason it's my Maich moment is what led up to that is somebody, presumably Florence Henderson's agent called her and said, weird. Al wants you for a video. He's doing Amish Paradise. What do you think? And she said, yes. Okay,

Amit: so it let's, let's pinpoint the thing. So it's the straight face part. Yeah. It's the leading up to it.

It's the call that you get.

Michael: Yeah. Mostly I have curiosity about why me. I also have curiosity about how you don't break out and laughter with weird al wrapping at you with an Amish beard and hat on. When Al called, asked me to be in his video for Amish Paradise. Well, you can imagine my surprise. So to prepare for the role, I had all the electricity shut off at my house and I ate nothing but potatoes and shoe fly pie for over a month.

Well, that's because I pay attention to every little detail, just like Al

Amit: does. How often has weirdo come up on this show? Weird. El just comes up like

Michael: every fourth episode. I find him a fascinating

Amit: institution. He really does cross. He

Michael: intersects everywhere like that. He's managed to pull this joke off for many, many decades.

Is it's still touring. Yeah. Anyway, so that's my mage. Amish Paradise. Amish Paradise. All right. Let's pause for a word for Marsh sponsor.

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Category four, love and marriage. How many marriages, also, how many kids, and is there anything public about these relationships? Florence Henderson had two marriages. The first one was in 1956. She was married to Ira. They had four children. They divorced in 1985, around the time Florence was 51. She then married again in 1987.

To her hypnotherapist, she was 53 and a therapist was John. They were married until his death in 2002. Uh, she was 68, never married again. So she talks at length about the deterioration of her marriage with Ira in her autobiography. Yes. And it does involve some infidelity and she's like very forthcoming about all this.

And it's funny, you can hear a lot of Catholic guilt and, uh, how she tells the story of, of what went down, but basically cheating on her Jewish husband. Yeah, exactly. By the way, she also mentions that like, so she's born Catholic and maintains faith from what it looks like for her entire life. So yeah, she has some extramarital affairs.

Feels awful about it. Uh, then. Gets into hypnotherapy. I think Ira finds out about things before it doesn't go like right to divorce. I think they tried to salvage the marriage for a while, but then there came a point where it was time to move on and she then falls in love with John, her hypnotherapist, who she certainly describes as a soulmate, and she realizes everybody is saying, what are you doing marrying your Hy therapist?

Yeah. That's a terrible idea. She, she's like, I get it. I get people say, I guess the hypnotherapist is not subject

Amit: to the Hippocratic

Michael: Oath. I don't know. Shall not marry. It sounds like John was pretty conflicted about things as well. Okay. You'll hear her in later interviews and you're saying Ira and I, my first husband and I are very good friends and I love his new wife and like we have grown and moved on.

I do think that there was some real work that she did with hypnotherapy and elsewhere. I think also with her faith that I think is substantial and carried that into her second marriage and then. You know, she never felt compelled to get married again. Although she did say in an interview with Matt Lauer that she has, uh, friends with benefits she did to Matt

Amit: Lauer.

ideas. Now don't plant more ideas

Michael: in that man's head. Yeah, seriously. But she announced this on, uh, national television and you described them using a fairly modern term that he is a friend with benefits. Yes. . You know what, it's, uh, we've been friends a long time. We're kind of like same time next year, kind of great.

You know, when we get to the multiple marriages thing, I like when people can say, here's what went wrong last time and I'm gonna try and do better in this next relationship. I see that here. Yep. I would say it the same.

Amit: Yeah. And it sounds like even in this period that she was a single mother, that she was extremely devoted and good.

Like every quote you find from her in every interview, it always goes back to like top priority as kids. That's tough. And I don't think that that was just a soundbite.

Michael: Yeah. And I think she would point to the fact that they're all four reasonably well balanced, uh, adults. I mean, and, and six grandkids. I mean, she's, and she speaks of pride

Amit: of them a lot, how proud she is of them very.

They also said one thing was interesting is that her kids used to nag her about like she never yelled at the Brady Kids. Yeah. On stage. But they're like, they're yelling at us at home. Yeah. And she was like, it's, she would basically say, well, you're real and I want the best

Michael: for you. Yeah. No. She was clear about differences between her and Carol, and I heard that as well.

Yes. Mrs. Brady was the ever cheerful, impossibly perfect matriarch of the Brady Clan. I used to watch that show and think, you know, if my, why isn't my mom like that? You know? I know a lot of women say to me, you know, I really hated you. Yeah. Because my kids wanted you to be their mother. And I said, but you like me now, don't you?

Yeah. What is the one thing that I guess is the most. About you from Carol Brady . That's a very good question. First of all, I've always worked. I've always had a job. All right. Category five net worth. I saw 10 million. Yeah, that's what I saw repeatedly. Did you think that was a little low? Did I think it was low?

You know,

Amit: the wind, this is the confetti of the falling

Michael: from the ceiling number for you. Oh no, I love it. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great number overall, but for somebody who worked really like right outta high school until

Amit: beginning age 82 until like, like three days before

Michael: her death, you're not damn right.

I mean like, and prided herself on always having a job. She was Joan Rivers like in her like, I don't know, galloping to the next thing. Somehow I just thought that there would've been investments or other, you know, opportunities where it's storing more away. I expected a larger.

Amit: Hmm. In that era of entertainment, I think she did pretty well.

Yeah, like there was definitely an inflection point that was probably more in the nineties of when the money really shut up. Some of the earlier stuff was not that

Michael: much money. Yeah, no. I think it came up with Yogi Bera too. I mean, you know, like being an athlete in a different era. This was well before you had like major endorsements and like huge paycheck opportunities.

Yeah.

Amit: It's very different than what we would perceive it as. I mean, you're better off going for like upper middle management GE than you are being, you know, like a sixties TV star,

Michael: a sixties athlete. But I mean, she was also doing cooking shows later on. I mean there was, you know, I think she

Amit: did two and that's where the money is I think.

I mean there were, I think that are Brady Bunch royalties. The Brady Bunch has never gone off the. Right. It's still on the

Michael: air and there's all these like reimaginings of it. There's the movie, there's the Brady Bunch, like variety hour that happened after the show was canceled. Correct? Yeah. So

Amit: there's pennies rolling in for each of those.

Uh, Wesson cooking oil was a big thing. She was a 22 year

Michael: spokesperson. That's another reason why I thought this number was gonna be higher. That should be 10 million. She, I like Oldsmobiles, like she did a ton of commercials and said, you know, these are like little movies. They, I mean,

Amit: there is a reason they're measuring her Q score.

Yeah. Hi

Michael: Flos. Why? Hey, you really do drink tag. Don't you worry about Susie getting enough Vitamin C my Susie. Almost half the children in this country don't. But Tang has a full day supply of vitamin C. I would've thought 50. Like that was the number I was expecting when I saw 10 million. I'm like, huh, this seems a little low.

Amit: Maybe she's feeding it into the Hypnotherapy

Michael: Institute. One can hope. Yeah. Yeah. I'm good with it. I just seemed low. That's it. Yeah. I mean, like

Amit: you said, six decades nonstop working. Lot of endorsements. I, I agree with you a little though.

Michael: All right. Category six, simpsonsy Night Live or Hall of Fame. This category is a measure of how famous a person is.

We include both guest appearances on Simpson's, the snl, as well as impersonations. So with The Simpsons, there are lots of Brady Bunch parodies, but never her specifically that I saw. I'm quite surprised at this. I'm really surprised. I expected to see a Florence Henderson and Parents on The Simpsons, and I never.

On snl, there is a cameo. Did you see this one? The Ladies Man? No. Okay, so it's a cold open. The Ladies Man played by Tim Meadows is it's summer's coming on and he's trying to choose his, uh, skank, uh, for the summer. Uh, and so there's three women who come out and audition. Contested number three. It's the host of a very popular morning show here on NBC call later.

Please welcome Flores Henderson. Leon, it's so nice to see you again. It is nice to see you too. Floy baby. Thank you. Gank number three. Where's the most unusual place you have ever done it? Oh, that's easy. Leon. Write down the old Hershey Highway. I think we have a winner. Big number three. I am very impressed.

Amit: Like she seemed to step into this roles of like laughing at herself. Yeah. Right. And they love to do this. This was the whole shakes the clown thing is like the polar opposite of Carol Brady. Right. Of like having her play this like skanky

Michael: one night stand type of person. Yeah. Cuz she's like reeks of nice white lady wholesomeness.

Right. I mean it seems like

Amit: she's comfortable enough to laugh at it.

Michael: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think she's got a sense of. I don't know. That's one of the things about my Maich moment. I do like that she is like laughing at herself. Like anybody who can do that, she's self-aware. So yeah, they're never hosted.

Uh, Saturday Night Live, and then of course there's Brady Bunch parodies on SNL as well. I didn't see. You know, and I forget who played Carol Brady. Okay. Arsenio. I didn't see her on Arsenio, however, when she died, like Arsenio is all over Twitter saying, God, I miss her. So I'm wondering if I didn't find it.

However, she does have a Hollywood star and she got it in 1996. Well deserved. Yes.

Amit: Couple other interesting things on the cameos. Most appearances on the love boat. Ah, 11 times. Yeah. Uh, sets the record for that. Uh, she did a 2012 episode of the Cleveland Show. I did see that. The SES McFarland show where she played.

Cleveland's nanny,

Michael: I believe. Yeah. Hollywood Squares, I think needs to be mentioned. That's another institution that's sort of fallen by the wayside. Yes. But, um, she was all over it. I mean, she like her,

Amit: she, she did all of that. I mean, Hollywood Squares $25,000 pyramid prices. Right. Dancing with the Stars.

She's one of the best own ones to have done

Michael: that. She, who's line is it Anyway, I saw her in appearance with her. I mean, like, she's all over the place. It's funny, I think she is in a kind of donna summer like place where, If you're born in the fifties or sixties, you absolutely know who Florence Henderson is.

I really do think that her name recognition falls off a cliff. Yes. You know, if you're born in the eighties or nineties, you know, and you have to explain like once upon a time, she was one of the most famous women anywhere. Correct. Right. But I also think the Brady Bunch is no like once upon a time. I do think that show was important, this idea of a blended family in 1969.

It's like a peak of like tumult in America. Yes. The Brady Bunch though. Originally Distained in Hollywood and never a top 20 ratings grabber. Has transcended its critics and has entered the American vernacular taking its place in pop culture and television history. We hear so much about family values nowadays and if there was ever a television show that contributed to that, I think the Brady Bunch is a personification of it now.

Young parents tell me that it's one of the few shows that they feel comfortable letting their children watch.

Amit: It was unique in the way that it was non dysfunctional. Yeah, which is actually like rare if you think about things like the Honeymooners and stuff like that, that preceded it and then just the equality of parental roles.

Yeah. That's something that had rarely been seen before. You know, you contrast that to leave it to Beaver, that you essentially have equal mom and dad. Yeah. She didn't work on the show, but that's not really relevant. She also didn't cook. I mean, Alice did all the cooking. Alice interesting. She was, but she was, you know, she was CEO of a household in, in the most cliche way that we used that.

But they actually, like, they gave

Michael: it full credit. All right, let's move on. Category seven Over under, in this category, we look at the life expectancy for the year someone was born to see if they beat the house odds and as a measure of grace. So life expectancy for women. Born in 1934 was 63.3 years. She died age 82, 19 years over.

But I do think it's really worth saying how unexpected it was. Nobody saw this coming. She showed

Amit: up at Dancing with the Stars like three days before Yeah. To cheer on one

Michael: of the actors from Brady Bunch. Yeah. Yeah. Like not only that, she did it Dancing with the Stars in her seventies. It was a 2010, I think was her appearance.

Yeah. She talks about like, I don't want any special breaks for my age. And you know, her competitive side came out and she threw herself into dancing. And she was known as a singer and as a performer, but not as a dancer. Like, she went all in with it. She was like in really good shape. 82, you know, I mean, that's not a young age to die, but she looked like she had a lot left in and then, you know, quote unquote drop dead.

Amit: Yeah. In 2016, which was this year of many tragedies. But what was interesting was that also Kerry Fisher and Debbie Reynolds both died that year. And it was all from cardiovascular

Michael: complications, heart failure, um, I mean in terms of grace. And vitality, like very high scores for great, like unusually high scores.

Very high scores. Way above average.

Amit: Yes. Yeah. And I mean, just the, what I was sitting at earlier, just the against all odds. I mean, born into poverty. Yeah. In 1934, number 10 of 10 kids you talked about. Her father didn't even know her name because there were so many girls there that check. You just, he struggled to

Michael: sometimes remember.

Remember who she was? Yeah. Uh, let's take another break.

Amit: Danielle Steel. Oh, Alive.

Michael: The rules are simple. Dead or alive? Danielle Steel is still with us at 74 years old. Dick Cavt. I think Dick Cav is dead, uh, incorrect. Dick Cav is still with us at 85 years old. Wow.

test your knowledge. Dead or alive? app.com.

So the first of the interlife categories, man in the mirror. How did they feel about their own reflection? I've got a question mark here. I want you to go first. Interesting. Okay, so I said probably liked it, probably a slam dunk. There are a fair amount of plastic surgeries that become a little bit more evident as you age.

I don't know what to make of that. If you're in Hollywood and your likeness and your attractiveness are part of, you know, your trade and your value in the market and choose somebody we mentioned earlier who continued to work kind of like well into being, you know, an older woman and that is defying the odds in Hollywood, and I'm not gonna falter for plastic surgeries, but it becomes obvious.

I think she likes her own reflection and I don't have a whole lot of reason to question that. But I, if you have a take here, I think I'd, I'd be willing to hear it out.

Amit: I do. I think she looked like Carol Brady until her death, like there was this preservation of a certain look. There was no, it didn't seem like there was an evolution.

Michael: That's interesting. My thoughts go in two directions there. One, you know, it's been a while since we did the Leonard De Moy episode, but I, I do think that there's a similarity there in the singularly associated with an iconic TV character. Spock is to let her Nemoy as Carol Brady is to Florence Henderson.

You know, it's, she doesn't wear it in any kind of uncomfortable way. I think she's got mostly gratitude and she says that over and over. I'm mostly grateful for what this show was, and having portrayed it well, I'm proud to have been. Carol Brady, I mentioned earlier, she had a mother who ran out at age 12 or 13.

She said, I think part of why I brought everything I did to that role had to do with an unmet need in my childhood to portray a always there for you, loving, compassionate, never gonna yell at you, kind of mother was important for her internally. And that's part of the reason that, you know, she pops out of the screen as this role.

How to understand all of that in terms of her own reflection back, like is she seeing Carol Brady? Yeah, I don't know Ed, it's an interesting theory. I think she's, because I think she has peace with the character. I think she has peace with her own reflection, even if she sometimes sees Carol Brady in the mirror.

So I think it's still a yes, but I think it is a complic. Yeah. Story. Yeah, I'm gonna go

Amit: now. And I think there is a risk element that she's not willing to take. I think she takes these risk elements as much as she does shakes the clown or goes in an Aussie Osborne commercial or, um, whatever she does. But that's the extent of it.

She's afraid to not be Carol Brady. You know, I'm, I'm sure this is frozen in her head of these absent parents, both by just tragedy and bad parenting. Yeah. And she had the success, Carol Brady was, you know, essentially what. Rocket ship was, and she just preserved this look, it was a little weird to me. She still looked like Carol Brady at age 80, as she did when she played the role at age 35.

And make no mistake, like Carol Brady was revolutionary in the fact that she was a very attractive mom. Yeah. They did not play moms as attractive back then, right? Like even when you had a 30 year old playing a mom, she looked like, you know, in an apron and then not sexy at all. But

Michael: I, uh, I actually think you've got a good point there on it.

I'm still gonna go yes, for the reasons I did, but I think that this is really debatable in terms of her self-awareness of who I am and, and what I need to look like and what gives me power in the entertainment industry as a woman. Some of it is because this role was so important and so remembered, and I'm not gonna let people forget that, and I'm going to continue to sort of wear that in how I look and how I present.

All right. Category nine, outgoing message, like man in the mirror. How do we think they felt about the sound of their own voice when they heard it on an answering machine? Outgoing voicemail. And would they have recorded it or would they have gone with the default setting? I wrote that. I think she liked it.

Amit: Yeah. To me, this is a quick one. I think the fact that she laughs at herself so much, she's definitely the type to record it herself and make that accessibility. Yeah, it's a nice voice. It's trusted, it's calming. I don't think

Michael: there's much to this one. I agree. I also think she would've recorded it on a home mastering machine.

I don't think she was too proud to like put her voice to something. Yep. I'll look of that. All right. Category 10 regrets. Public or private. What we really want to know is what, if anything, kept this person awake at. I'm gonna go through a few fast. Sure. We mentioned cheating with Ira. Clearly one of her big life regrets is that she strayed, by the way, she at one point had a one night stand with the former mayor of New York who gave her crabs.

Yes. Yeah, you saw that too.

Amit: Yeah. Yeah. That was a big John Lindsay was the

Michael: guy's name. Yeah. That sounded like regret number one was sleeping with John Lindsay. Mm-hmm. . Um, anyway, so this is a big one. She actually did say to her dad, shortly before her dad's death, she was back home from acting school, uh, visiting him.

And he had just come off a terrible bender. Um, and he looks terrible. Apparently. She said, I hate to see you like this. I'd rather see you dead. She actually said those words to him and she did not make it back to his funeral because there was a conflict with her performance and she felt crazy guilty about this.

Yeah, I, I, I came across that as well. Yeah. Talks to, uh, a priest in confession about this and he. Kind of tries to console her and say, we need to learn to forgive ourselves. But she said it led to insomnia. And this I think was one of the big things that came out when she started doing hypnotherapy, was figuring out a way to forgive herself for, um, for these being almost the last words she says to her dad.

So those were the public ones. What about the Greg Brady date? You think that's a regret? Yes. This should have come up before. Now there's this like classic urban legend that they had affair. Yeah. And Greg, it was the oldest son on the Brady Body, but still only 15. Right. The truth as she explains it and her autobiography is that she did go on a date with him, but the way she describes the date was sort of like a,

Amit: it was like a tea party in the backyard, kind of like it was for play.

Michael: Greg did not even have a driver's license. Yeah. And so his brother was like there so he could use the learner's permit and then the brother skipped out, they went to dinner in a show and then, you know, he like kissed her on the cheek at the end of this date. Yes. Florence also says like, Greg had a thing for me and I knew that, but as to whether or not we ever rolled around in the hey, no.

You know, we never, absolutely not. Yeah.

Amit: But even this date, like, what was

Michael: the point? I mean, I guess I interpreted it as, I do think that she's looking out for the kids on set and that she does have a kind of closeness with them and she's got her own children, and so maybe she knows something about the awkward developmental stages of kids.

Um, I, I looked at, I, I guess I had a generous interpretation of that date. You had a generous interpretation. I did. Yeah. I don't, I, I certainly don't think she was, Flirty? No.

Amit: No, I don't think she was. I'm just wondering what the interpretation was. The

Michael: generous interpretation of saying yes to a 15 year old who you're on set with is I think he's got a thing for me and I think we need to get into a place where we can talk about that and I can make it clear nothing's gonna happen, but I'm flattered and what you're feeling is normal.

Like that is the single most generous interpretation I could come up with for why you say yes to a

Amit: date with a 15 year old, then you do it over a milkshake in the trailer. I

Michael: think that's right. I don't think You don't need to plan ideas in his 15 year old head. Yeah. And

Amit: even just let this rumor mill even just give anything.

Yeah.

Michael: To let this rumor mill fly privately. I had maybe not doing more in Hollywood. I mean, there's no one big. Role she does after Carol Brady. She's still

Amit: playing the person that used to be Carol Brady up until her death for 42 years after the show

Michael: went off the air. Yeah, I think actually one example of that are is the cooking shows.

Cuz she says in an interview, I don't really like cooking. Right. And I think that there is like kind of playing to these perceived motherly qualities and, and a certain kind of, I don't know, matriarchal physician, you know, for better or worse. I think she is still playing to that. She also talks about not being able to slow down.

She sees her workaholism as a kind of running away from something. She's, you know, in her autobiography. She gets honest with herself about that and says, I do need to slow down and I do need to. You know, accept the pace of the universe and don't have to work to stay relative and be competitive all the time.

So I think that there's an inner conflict in there about, yeah, I mean that's

Amit: what led her to hypnotherapy was she was going through bouts of depression. Yeah. She had late stage fright and insomnia and there was certainly, there were things brewing that she either needed

Michael: to take a break or come to terms with.

She has demons. But then I think the way she internalizes that and says, it's my fault for some of these things. I mean, that, that is sort of classic childhood trauma in a way. And so I think like she almost, she almost amps up her trauma as she gets older. Yeah. Um, alright. Category 11, good dreams, bad dreams.

This is not about personal perception, but rather, does this person have a haunted look in the eye? Something that suggests inner turmoil, inner demons, unresolved trauma. Haunted look. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, that's the right answer. Haunted look. Born into

Amit: what? She was born into the difficult childhood with the parents.

Michael: Yeah. Which is sort of interesting if we are remembering her as America's mom. Yeah.

Amit: The implication here of the haunted look in the eye is like, you know, we wanna think, okay, maybe 5% of the people have a haunted look in their eye. I think between you and I we're, what we are saying is, you know, probably over 50% of people have a somewhat haunted

Michael: look in their eye, easy, and I think it has to do with actually layers of denialism and that and that she was trying to solve her problems with lies about who she was.

Yeah. I think she would sign off on that framing actually. Yeah. All right. Second to last category, cocktail coffee or cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity. This may be a question of what drug sounds like the most fun to partake with this person, or it may be about access parts of them that we're still most curious about.

I wrote probably a drink, but really I just wanna be hypnotized. Yeah. And

Amit: I would, I wouldn't mind being hypnotized while

Michael: stoned. So what, that was, the question actually to me is which substance is like best for hypnosis? , maybe coffee. I don't know. I, I think like if I want hypnosis to work, I actually need to be stone cold sober.

Probably the institute wants that. Yeah, I think so. But the places you could go, Michael, this is, I want to be hypnotized because I'm curious about it. I don't know what I'm curious about here with Florence Henderson and I think. There's a sort of like normal level of complexity to who she was and what she was about.

I, I think she could be fun and funny. I think she's got a sense of humor. Oh, she absolutely does. Yeah. But I don't know that, like I'm itching to hang out with it, you know? I don't know that I'm chomping at the bit to smoke a joint and have the giggles. So what's your final answer? I'll go cannabis because I think that it's the most, uh, hypnotherapeutic adjacent.

I think I'd like to experience a little ego deflation with Florence Henderson, and if she could lead me there and she could lead us both there by smoking a little pot and then, you know, getting the stopwatch out and ticking it back and forth, I think that could be a good hang. Yeah. But that's about all I, it's

Amit: up there with, with what Bobcat Gold weight wanted, which shake the clown just to be able to say like, you did something illicit with Mrs.

Brady.

Michael: I'm the same.

Amit: I'm the same. And cannabis, uh, yep. Cannabis, uh, either before or after or during the hypnotherapy session. I kind of want one, I want a hypnotherapy without it, you know? And then I want one with it. Mm-hmm. . Let's see what planet we land on. Florence. Uh, I do have this question about the singularity of her life post Brady, of always going back and like every cameo and every game show appearance and stuff is like the woman who played Carol Brady.

Yeah. And I wanna know what that sort of feels like and looks like when you're at age 70 and you hung up that character at age 40. Yeah. She couldn't restart a career at that point. Yeah. She's just replay an incarnation of Carol Brady or Florence Anderson, the woman that used to be Carol Brady. Right. And I wanna know what that is doing to her existentially

Michael: at a later age.

I think that's a good segue into our final category, the Vander beak named after James Vander beak. You famously said, I don't want your life. I want to pick up on that last thought of the singular character, you know, to play Spock or to play George Castanza or to play these like sort of, you know, eccentric characters, or maybe not even eccentric, but like really, really unique.

Carol Brady is a little bit more. You know, the arc type of mom, right? Or of mother, even if you're singularly associated with this character, you're Florence Henderson. There are worse fate in a way because you've helped them in, in, in a way that, I don't know if it's as clear if you are some other iconic TV ifor, right?

You can tell yourself, I've done this service here because people need that. I, Florence Henderson needed that when I was a little girl and my mom ran out on me. I get it. So it's not hard to sort of like get yourself from that association to a place of deep gratitude, which I think is the whole fucking point of life.

It's hard for me to weigh out the Vander beak here because I don't know what the deciding criteria might be. I like the rags to Rich's story. Um, the marriage life is troubled but ultimately pretty healthy. She finds a soulmate and she's committed to the family and has a good relationship with her ex.

So really pretty high scores there. And all four kids, seemingly without major problems, totally 10 million is a great number. Not to mention the sort of excitement of being on stage and going to Vegas all the time and hanging out with Dean Martin. And there's a fun aspect. You mentioned earlier, evolution.

I don't see an evolution in character of like, now I can take on a totally different role. The world's still gonna see me as Carol Brady, but she certainly evolves herself and she dedicates time to self-improvement and love and faith and betterment. So it's a net plus overall and. I think I'm a yes on the Vander, because why not?

This is not somebody who's stunted, I don't think. I don't know how like overwhelmingly like, hell yeah, I want this. Right. But yeah, I think that's where I'm at. I think I'm a yes. What? What do you just have to say the sentence? Yes. I want your life, Carol. I'm sorry. , yes. Now. Oh my God. I know. Even I'm doing it.

Okay. Yes. I want your life. Florence Henderson. I'll take it. I'll, I'll take it. Sure. Yeah. So I

Amit: think you built up a lot of the exact same argument that I did. I love the rags riches that, I mean the childhood sounds rough and terrible. Yeah. The fact that she became this symbol of comfort and trust, she was a symbol of that and she carried forward on that symbol.

Well after the character was sunset. Yeah. And there are a couple of generations of people that grew up watching her play Carol Brady and found comfort in that. Yeah. Uh, the fact that she didn't evolve on camera, I just think seems. Kind of boring. Yeah. That's like, you know, if, if it's, it's the equivalent of going and just, you know, working for 50 years, like I said at general acting, but that just sucks.

That just seems stale to me. That just, it seems like old work that I would get really sick of. Not even like for her to do it for 42 years after the show ends. Yeah, I would get tired. Eight years after the show ends. Yeah. Did she basically just leave that there and wear that mask and continue to do her inner work and let that life evolve, be closer to her children, her stepchildren, her grandchildren, her step grandchildren, her second husband?

I think possibly. So I hate the staleness. I do believe there is meaning in the role she played. I think if you just take exactly what she was born into, what the odds were to where she ended up, it's extraordinary. I'm pretty close. Ivanna Seesaw, it just happened pretty close to the Seesaw.

Michael: Stopping. Okay, so let me offer one role.

Let me offer one more bit of data point here, because I think I need to go back to something that came up very early on in this conversation. Trusted this, right? I think that that she has it and then I think she honors it That that for whatever reason, people ascribe a sense of trust in me and my relationships that I'm gonna tell you.

That, that I'm gonna protect secrets, which I think she does pretty well. And I'm also, uh, going to say as best I can, how I've cultivated that trust and how important that is. I, I, I don't know. The more I look at this, the more I'm feeling an emphatic yes to this life. She says, I have a higher ideal for who I want to be.

I wanna be a better mother. I wanna be a better wife. I want to be, you know, a better woman, a better performer. And she does do that work. And along the way, she laughs at herself with weird Al Yankovic and with the MTV Music Awards, she does Dancing with the Stars and she manages to draw a paycheck all the while, like looking inward for how can I be a better version of myself And I'm gonna tell the world about this and I'm gonna make a joke with Matt Lauer and I, when I'm in my late seventies that, uh, yeah, I have friends with benefits.

There's a guy you don't know about, but I'm still having sex and that's great. The more I talk about it, the more I think. The way the hand was played throughout, you know, good for her. And if we can't like applaud and celebrate that and say, I basically want that life, some version of that life, then what the fuck are we doing?

I love the trust

Amit: factor and all that and these are all the things that push you me Exactly. Towards a yes. Yeah. But are the things that are missing strong enough? I don't like the idea of outwardly missing the present moment that always being sort of this reliving of this character that ended in 1974.

Yeah. Where my gut is going is that I don't like the looking upon the past so much and not evolving on screen As a public persona, would I play the hand differently given the chance? Yes. So, no, I don't want your life Florence and.

Michael: Okay. I have to accept that. What I hear in that is that the flexibility to write our own stories of who we are internally, but also how others see us is just too important

Amit: to me at this moment today.

Michael: Mm-hmm. . Okay. I think we've arrived. Amit, you are Florence Henderson, the woman who played Carol Brady. You have died and you have gone to the Pearl Gates where you're meeting St. Peter the Unitarian proxy for the afterlife. You have an opportunity to make a pitch. The floor is yours,

Amit: St. Peter. This world is big and lonely.

I know that I'm one of 10 children born in one of the worst economic periods of this country. What we need to know is that somebody cares for us, and the way that's done is by building trust. You have trust in your fellow people. You have trust in strangers, you have trust in people on screen. I played this role of the All American mother to yes, six onscreen children, but also to a worldwide audience.

I built up trust. I built up comfort. I exuded the fact that they will be picked up when they are crying, whether they are five years old, 30 years old, 50 years old, or 80 years old. That is what I symbolized. Someone is there for you. Let me in.

Michael: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Famous and Gravy. If you're enjoying our show, please tell your friends about us. Help spread the word. Find us on Twitter. Our Twitter handle is at Famous and Gravy, and we also have a newsletter which you can sign up for on our website, famous and gravy.com.

Famous and Gravy was created by Amit Kapoor and me, Michael Osborne. This episode was produced by Jacob Weiss, original theme music by Kevin Strang. Thanks for listening. See you next time.