The former Brady Bunch star Eve Plumb is speaking out this week to reveal the shocking amount that she and her cast-mates earn in residual pay.
Plumb Talks Residuals
In her new memoir Happiness Included: Jan Brady and Beyond, which was released last month, Plumb wrote, “If I had a dime for every rerun episode, I’d pay off the national deficit. I don’t.”
Plumb, 68, who played Jan Brady on the beloved sitcom from 1969-1974, doubled down on this in a new interview, saying, “We don’t make residuals.”
What?!
Plumb said this as she talked about the biggest misconceptions fans have since The Brady Bunch ended over fifty years ago. These misconceptions include her character’s iconic like “Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!,” which Plumb says wasn’t actually famous until it was spoofed on Saturday Night Live!
“It’s a challenge because it’s so repetitive,” Plumb lamented. “I have to explain every time that it wasn’t popular before the Saturday Night Live skit did it. That we don’t make residuals, that I didn’t hate The Brady Bunch.”
“It’s like it, no matter how many times I say it, people still have assumptions,” she continued. “So, I just say it again and again. Try to be my best smiley person. And I think doesn’t do any good because they don’t know that it’s my 5,000th time hearing that.”
Other Brady Bunch Stars Weigh In
Susan Olsen, 64, who played Cindy Brady on The Brady Bunch, previously explained that they don’t get residuals because of “the way things were before 1973.” She stated that in the 1970s, actors were only “paid for reruns for the first 10 runs.”
This meant that according to Olsen, the cast’s residual paychecks dried up in 1979.
“So [we’ve] made no money since then,” she alleged.
Barry Williams, 71, who played Greg Brady, has been open about the lack of residual pay as well. In his 1992 memoir Growing Up Brady: I Was a Teenage Greg, Williams wrote, “Salaries for sitcom actors have changed considerably since the ‘70s.”
“In our fifth and final year, the highest salary among us kids was $1,100 a week,” he continued.
Williams went on to say that he made $24,000 for the final season of The Brady Bunch. He acknowledged that this amount was “‘not bad for a teenager.” However, it wasn’t enough to last him for years.
“Take into consideration agent commissions, taxes and the fact that some of the kids were expected to contribute to their families,” he added. “It was enough to indulge in toys, but hardly enough to carry you through the slow periods that inevitably followed.”
Other TV Stars Talk Residuals
Other former TV stars have also complained about their lack of residuals. Jodie Sweetin, who played Stephanie Tanner on Full House from 1987-1995, also recently revealed the shockingly low amount that she makes in residuals.
“I got a one-cent check the other day,” Sweetin, 44, said while appearing on the McBride Rewind podcast last month. “There’s no syndication anymore because it’s all in streaming. Who gets paid for that? Nobody gets paid for that.”
In contrast, the former Friends star Lisa Kudrow, 62, just revealed that she and her fellow cast-mates still make a staggering $20 million per year in residuals. The cast of Friends famously negotiated their salaries together, presenting a united front. In the first season, the Friends cast made $22,500 per episode. By the final two seasons, they were each earning $1million per episode.
Must be nice!
Given how much The Brady Bunch continues to be played on television, it’s sad that the cast makes nothing in residuals. Here’s hoping that each of them have found other lucrative ways to earn money throughout their lives!