Famous Brady Bunch mom, Carol Brady — in real life, Florence Henderson — has died suddenly at age 82, after suffering heart failure while hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
She was surrounded by family and friends.
Henderson was born in Dale, Indiana but grew up in Owensboro, Kentucky, and graduated from St. Francis Academy there in 1951. She was the youngest of ten children; her father was a tobacco sharecropper.
Her career spanned six decades, starting on the Broadway stage. She debuted in the Broadway musical Wish You Were Here in 1952 and later starred in the lead role in Fanny, a long-running 1954 musical.
She is best remembered for her staring role as matriarch Carol Brady on the ABC sitcom, The Brady Bunch. She was ranked as one of the 100 Greatest TV Icons by Entertainment Weekly.
Her stage and television credits are extensive.
She had four children, ten grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Her manager, Kayla Pressman, said she had been hospitalized on Nov. 23, the day before her death, and had not been ill prior to that.
On Nov 21, just three days before her death, she attended a live taping of Dancing with the Stars in support of her friend and former on-screen daughter Maureen McCormick.