Know Your History: Robert Reed
LGBT, NewsBites — By Speak Equal on October 7, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Robert Reed
He gained his greatest fame as the father, Mike Brady, on the sitcom The Brady Bunch, on which he appeared from 1969 to 1974. From the beginning of The Brady Bunch he was unhappy with the part, feeling that acting in the often silly sitcom was beneath his serious Shakespearean training. Despite his discontent with the show, by most accounts he genuinely liked his co-stars, and became beloved as a father figure by the younger cast members. In an effort to bring more realism to the show, Reed argued with the show’s creator, Sherwood Schwartz. He frequently presented Schwartz with written memos detailing why a character’s motivation did not make sense, or why it was wrong for one episode to combine elements of different styles, such as farce and satire. One such argument resulted in Reed being written out of the show’s final episode.
Reed was briefly married to Marilyn Rosenberg (1957-1959). The couple had one daughter, Caroline Reed, who was born in 1958. Caroline had a small role in an episode of The Brady Bunch entitled “The Slumber Caper.” Her character’s name was Karen and she is credited as “Carolyn Reed”. This episode also reunited Reed with his co-star from The Defenders, E. G. Marshall. She was also in Cannonball Run II.
Reed felt that his career required him to be secretive about his homosexuality.[1] Several of his male partners have since stated that he threatened them after sex, because he wanted his homosexuality to remain hidden.
Reed died in 1992, in Pasadena, California, from colon and bladder cancer; he was suffering from AIDS at the time. He was cremated and his ashes are interred in Memorial Park Cemetery, Skokie, Illinois.
[1]Rutledge, Leigh W. (2003), The Gay Book of Lists, Alyson Publishing, ISBN 1555837409
[2]Wikipedia – http://wikipedia.org
[3]Famous and Gay – http://www.famousandgay.com
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