Former “Brady Bunch” actress Eve Plumb has disclosed the financial reality of residuals from the iconic 1970s sitcom.
At 68, Plumb has released a memoir titled “Happiness Included: Jan Brady and Beyond,” where she humorously notes, “If I had a dime for every rerun episode, I’d pay off the national deficit. I don’t.”
During an appearance on the PauseRewind podcast, as cited by KOMO News, Plumb clarified, “We don’t make residuals.”
The beloved ABC series aired from 1969 to 1974 and has continued to capture the attention of new audiences through its reruns.
Susan Olsen, 64, who played Cindy on the series, previously explained on the Oprah Network’s Where Are They Now series that the cast’s lack of residual pay is the result of ‘the way things were before 1973.’
This revelation coincides with Lisa Kudrow’s recent statement that she and her “Friends” co-stars still receive $20 million annually in residuals from the 1990s show.
Former Brady Bunch star Eve Plumb has revealed what the cast of the beloved 70s sitcom earns in residual pay
She said on the PauseRewind podcast, ‘We don’t make residuals’; the cast pictured in a season five promo photo in 1973
Plumb pointed out that during the early 70s, actors were only compensated for the first ten reruns of a show.
The cast’s checks dried up in 1979 as she said, ‘So [we’ve] made no money since then.’
Brady Bunch star Barry Williams, 71, who played Greg Brady, has also been candid about the cast’s compensation.
He wrote in the 1992 memoir Growing Up Brady: I Was a Teenage Greg, ‘Salaries for sitcom actors have changed considerably since the ‘70s.’
The former child star divulged, ‘In our fifth and final year, the highest salary among us kids was $1,100 a week.’
Plumb, Olsen, and Williams starred alongside Maureen McCormick (Marcia), 69, Mike Lookinland (Bobby), 65, and Christopher Knight (Peter), 68.
Williams acknowledged in his book that the $24,000 he made in the Brady Bunch’s final season was ‘not bad for a teenager,’ per Page Six.
He penned, ‘Take into consideration agent commissions, taxes and the fact that some of the kids were expected to contribute to their families. It was enough to indulge in toys, but hardly enough to carry you through the slow periods that inevitably followed.’
The 68-year-old actress recently published a memoir called Happiness Included: Jan Brady and Beyond, in which she wrote, ‘If I had a dime for every rerun episode, I’d pay off the national deficit. I don’t’; pictured on May 4
L-R Former Brady Bunch co-stars Maureen McCormick, Mike Lookinland, Plumb, Barry Williams, Susan Olsen, and Christopher Knight pictured in 2019
Plumb’s revelation comes on the heels of Lisa Kudrow’s admission that she and her Friends co-stars still earn $20 million a year in residual pay from the 90s TV show; pictured in April
Kudrow with her co-stars Matt Le Blanc, Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer and the late Matthew Perry in 1994
Kudrow, 62 – who played the eccentric Phoebe Buffay from 1994 to 2004 – starred in Friends alongside Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc, and the late Matthew Perry.
The cast famously negotiated their salaries together, climbing from $22,500 per episode in the first season to $1 million each by the final two seasons.
They later reunited for a one-off special on HBO Max in 2021, reportedly earning $2.5 million apiece for their reprisals.
Speaking to The Times recently, Kudrow said she’s only recently been able to ‘appreciate just how great’ the show was.
‘There was a genius at work. And whatever any of us do in the future, we will never experience something like that again,’ she told the publication.
