The Brady Bunch star Mike Lookinland has revealed that he had some wild times after his time on the classic TV show.
Lookinland, now 65, appeared on The Real Brady Bros podcast on Tuesday, where his former TV brother Christopher Knight told him he’d “heard stories” about him. At least one story made it to the news headlines in 1997, when Lookinland was arrested on a DUI charge. Lookinland told Knight, 68, who played his older brother Peter Brady to Lookinland’s Bobby, that whatever he’d heard was “pretty much true.”
“I lived my childhood in my 20s because I couldn’t when I was a child,” Lookinland explained. “And in my twenties, I had a car and money and freedom,” he also said, adding, “I was fully off the rails.”
Lookinland said the only thing that kept him from becoming part of the disturbed former child actor narrative was the limitations of technology at the time. “I’m just thankful that not every man, woman, and child had a high-def camera in their pocket when I was 25, like they do now, because it would have ruined my life,” he said.
Knight weighed in on why they never got into trouble as kid actors while working on the storied show. “No one’s ever said a bad thing about any of The Brady Bunch kids,” said Knight’s co-host Jaybeau Jones.
The other children of the on-screen Brady clan included Barry Williams as Greg Brady, and Maureen McCormick, Eve Plumb, and Susan Olsen as Brady sisters Marcia, Jan, and Cindy, respectively. The series ran from 1969 to 1974.
“Maybe because we didn’t wanna disappoint Florence and Bob,” Knight said, referring to their on-screen parents Florence Henderson and Robert Reed, who played Carol and Mike Brady. “I mean, that was the beginning of it,” he continued. “It’s like there’s certain people that you just don’t want to disappoint. I think that was stronger with me with those two than it was with my own parents.”
As for Lookinland’s offscreen struggles, he said his 1997 arrest was a wake-up call. He discussed the ordeal on Oprah Winfrey’s Where Are They Now? Special in 2013. “You should really try to live your childhood when you’re a child, because if you do it when you’re 26, it can be dangerous,” he said at the time.
Lookinland discovered his vice was drinking, right away, he also said. “I loved alcohol. First time I had a drink, oh boy, I thought it was the greatest thing in the world.” When he was arrested for driving under the influence, he said, “It became clear that the choice wasn’t between sobering up or drinking,” but “between living or dying.” He then made the “simple” choice to give it up, and has been sober since then, he said.
Lookinland lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he’s lived since ending his Hollywood career after reprising his Brady role for several spinoff series. He shares two adult sons with his wife and college sweetheart, Kelly Wermuth.
