These two were nearly cast as Mike and Carol Brady
The Brady Bunch could have had much different parents.
You have to feel for Jeffrey Hunter. The guy just missed out on playing two of the most iconic roles in classic television. Look at him in the photo above. As you can tell by the insignia sewn onto that gold pullover, he was — briefly — the captain of the Enterprise. Hunter was the first man to sit at the helm on Star Trek. He was Capt. Christopher Pike in "The Cage," the original pilot episode for Star Trek. You know, the one that failed to impress the network. The one that got scrapped and retooled to make way for Captain Kirk.
Three years later, Pike's name popped up in trade gossip. Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky wrote in September 1968, "Paramount tested Jeff Hunter and Diane McBain for their series The Brady Bunch, based on Lucille Ball's Yours, Mine and Ours. They also tested Bob Holiday, who starred on Broadway in Superman." There's a lot of juicy info in there.
By "Superman" Skolsky meant the stage production It's a Bird…It's a Plane…It's Superman. The muscular, strong-jawed Holiday is hard to image at the head of the Brady clan. He had difficulty shedding the cape, showing up in commercials for carpet and Aqua Velva as the Man of Steel.
That brings us to Diane McBain, the blonde beauty who was once a contract actor for Warner Bros. Going to high school in the L.A. area, she was discovered acting in a play as a senior.
McBrain landed her breakout role in 1961's Parrish, a drama set in the world of the tobacco industry. The studio moved her over to its television productions, giving McBain a leading role in the hip crime series Surfside 6. She played a socialite on that show — and another socialite, Pinkie Pinkston, on Batman. In 1966, she also played the leading lady to Elvis Presley in his racing flick Spinout.
The producers had their eye on Broadway, clearly. Holiday was known for his work there, and Florence Henderson, the true Carol Brady, was plucked from the stage.
Just a month later, a rival gossip columnist, Joyce Haber, had the true scoop:
"A pilot casting is Broadway's Florence Henderson. The musical-comedy star has been enticed to TV in an almost-sure thing. Almost-sure because she'll play Mrs. Brady (read 'Doris Day')"
Funny how Haber compared Carol to Doris Day. She compared Mike to "Brian Keith" (Family Affair) and the sitcom itself to With Six You Get Eggroll.
So the studio's flirtation with McBain and Hunter lasted mere weeks. But it's interesting to think what might have been.
56 Comments
The "what ifs" are always interesting. Most often it's not just about the lead role. Hunter probably would've been good in a traditional action/adventure role. But Science Fiction (the way they intended ST to appeal to the masses) needed a special personality. And more than that, the personality had to have chemistry with two others himself. I've often said that the ST Trio represented 3 sides of a personality. Spock, intellect, Bones, humanity and Kirk, emotion.
Hunter came across as (technically) a good actor, but he was cold and one dimensional. From "anger" to "hostile" but not much authentic warmth towards Susan Oliver, for example (who was a very dynamic actress).
It wasn't that ST would've been very different with Hunter, I don't think it would've been very long, either.
Three seasons WAS a long time, in the day! Especially because that series was on the verge of being cancelled all the time. Viewer popularity helped give it some attention, just not enough. Watching classic TV now, we get used to the longevity of so many shows. Like Westers for example, and TAGs which got very lucky. But that was not the norm at all.
In ST's day, there were only 3 networks, and the survival of a series meant it needed to be in the top 20 (for at least one season). Because networks figured it got noticed. Then, as they would see the show decline in numbers, it gave the networks a good excuse to replace it with the next bright idea. It was STRICTLY a numbers game! Because each "point" represented thousands of viewers!
Remember how Tina Louise got hired for GI too. Thought she was going to be the "Star."
Something similar happened to Hackman's co-star Roy Scheider at that same time: he'd done a pilot called Assignment: Munich, which ABC bought for use in a 'Wheel' show called The Men.
Abc announced the show with Scheider as the star; French Connection opened, and Scheider's agents suddenly jacked up his price, and ABC brought in Bob Conrad, and the rest you can figure out ...
I watch Mannix almost every night. It's fun to watch how they rearrange the same furnishings over and over, particularly when they're using the Spanish motif decor (his office, the staircase etc.). You can tell by the doors. But when they use the BB set, straight up, it's so obvious!
I think you mean 'Hunter's name'.