Excerpt from
Growing Up Brady...I Was a Teenage Greg
Written by Barry williams with Chris Kreski
Published in North America in 1992 by HarperCollins Publishers
To put a woman like that in close daily proximity to a normally sex-obsessed teenage guy
is to drive that poor young man wild. At least that's what happened to me. Almost from day
one, my feelings towards Florence were more carnal than maternal. I can remember that even
as we Bradys did our very first photo shoot together, her somewhat sweaty sense of humor
took me by surprise, then held me entranced.
Under a huge shade tree in a Santa Monica park, all nine of us were posing for hokey, overly
cute group shots and being choreographed into all sorts of saccharine poses. One of the
worst featured the Brady girls and some enormous prop lollipops. Florence remarked that they
were so big it would take about four hours to finish them. At which point I, neglecting to
bite my tongue, said, "Yeah, and four hours is a long time to suck on anything."
My joke was met with dead silence and uncomfortable stares by almost everyone--except Florence.
She simply rolled her eyes, laughed heartily, and said, "Not for me it isn't." From then on
we just seemed to click.
From that point on Florence never wavered in her friendship, and I did what any young guy
might: I got a case of the hots for my "mom". It finally got so intense that one day I just
couldn't control myself anymore and wound up asking her out.
Amazingly, she accepted.
Yeah, I know it struck me as completely weird too. I was thrilled to have successfully hit
on Florence Henderson, but absolutely terrified about having to look cool on a grown-up date.
Basically, I had no concept of what grown-ups actually did when they went out on dates, and
preparing for it presented me with all sorts of problems. First, I was still three months shy
of my sixteenth birthday, which meant I was also three months shy of having a driver's license,
which in Los Angeles, meant that I had about as much freedom as a chained-up dog...Then a stroke
of brilliance hit me, and I bounced it off my brother Craig. We made a deal that if he let me
illegally drive his car solo on my date, I'd wash and wax the monster twice a week for a month.
I got the idea from a Brady script. We haggled a little and spit-shook on it. Seemed fair...
Luckily, the drive to her apartment went smoothly. I got to the gate, rang for my date, waited
nervously in the lobby for her to come down, made small talk with the doorman, heard my name,
looked up, and was stunned. Florence had arrived in the lobby and looked absolutely beautiful
--sexy, sophisticated, and not at all like Carol Brady. As she stood shimmering in chiffon,
I stood stammering in the doorway, dumbstruck by the fact that this amazing creature had
actually consented to a date with me. Still, as my teenager's sense of cockiness overrode my
genuine astonishment, I came to the conclusion that for me to land a babe like this, I must
be pretty hot stuff too! I convinced myself that Florence had gotten all dolled up just to
impress me, and we headed toward my brother's car.
"Oh, this is ... uh ... nice," Florence said, half-smiling at my brother Craig's creation.
"I've never ... uh ... seen anything quite like it."
"Why, thank you, Florence!" I beamed, still too naive to accurately read between the lines.
I suavely opened her door, helped her in, ran around to the other side, got in, turned the
ignition, stiffly shifted into reverse, and promptly backed the car into a wall. It was the
rear retaining wall of Florence's building. Still trying to keep cool, I sputtered out, "It's
... uh ... no problem. I'll just take a quick look-see."...
We drove to the Grove, watched a valet wrestle with the car, and went inside. Since I'd never
before been to any place as ornate as the Coconut Grove, my immediate thought was "Wow!"; my second, "Good choice"; and my third, "Oh my god, this is gonna be expensive!" Still, I had
the prettiest date in the place, and cast aside momentary concerns in favor of just plain
having a great time...
The rest of the evening went pretty well. Dinner was good, and the show was ... well, strange.
Rouvan turned out to be a sort of poor man's Enrico Caruso, with a huge, pompous voice that
belted out songs like "Laugh, Clown, Laugh" with a vocal ferocity that would make even Robert
Goulet cringe. Anyway, we talked about singers (good ones and Rouvan), songs, and traveling,
and I confided to her that I wanted someday to sing and do my own shows. She was very
encouraging.
Afterward, we piled back into Craig's Formula Firebird and tore out toward home. I ground a few
gears, and stalled once at a red light while fighting with its musclebound clutch; but no matter,
because back at Florence's place she told me she'd had a wonderful time...
We said goodbye, Florence let me give her a kiss goodnight (no tongue, but nice), and I drew my
first deep breath in what seemed like hours.
I went home feeling like a major stud.
Twenty years later, Florence and I talked about our escapade over a long, long, long lunch, where
she spilled this quote: "We went from liking each other to having a crush on each other and you
were always on the make with me. I had to worry about that. You were really cute, and I was
tempted a few times. I think we're lucky Carol never slept with Greg, but ...uh ...it coulda been,
coulda been."
I went home feeling like a major stud ...again.
© 1992 by Barry Williams wh Chris Kreski
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