Maureen McCormick Said There Was ‘So Much Sexual Tension’ Between Her and Her ‘Brady Bunch’ Co-Star Barry Williams
Maureen McCormick and Barry Williams played step-siblings on the iconic TV series The Brady Bunch. But off-screen, the feeling between the two actors wasn’t exactly what you would expect between a brother and sister. The two had a long-simmering crush on each other that they finally acted on while filming on-location in Hawaii.
Maureen McCormick and Barry Williams had feelings for each other
In 1972, the cast of The Brady Bunch released their second studio album, Meet the Brady Bunch. Soon after, they headed out on a cross-country tour, playing at state fairs and theaters in San Bernardino, Savannah, Atlantic City, and elsewhere, McCormick recalled in her 2008 memoir, Here’s the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My Voice.
While on tour, the Brady kids spent a lot of time together in close quarters. “We changed clothes in makeshift rooms off to the side of the stage, boys and girls next to one another separated only by a flimsy curtain that offered glimpses of the other side through thin separations in the panels of hanging fabric,” she wrote. “I remember a lot of unintentional flashing between camps.”
Once they were onstage, McCormick and Williams had to duet on the James Taylor/Carole King song “You’ve Got a Friend.”
“We stood on opposite sides of the stage, inching slowly toward the center. Finally, we turned and sang to each other,” the Marcia Brady actor recalled. “It was choreographed to be a romantic moment, and there was so much sexual tension between us we didn’t have to pretend.”
‘The Brady Bunch’ stars finally acted on their feelings for each other
Despite their obvious attraction to each other, nothing happened between McCormick and Williams on the tour. But things changed soon after the tour concluded, when the cast of the ABC sitcom flew to Hawaii to film the first episode of season 4.
McCormick, who was then 16, was quickly swept away by the romance of the island. Her thoughts turned to her co-star, who was just about to turn 18.
“As soon as I stepped off the plane, I started to think about him more intensely in the way I had fantasized for a long time,” she wrote. “We had spent the past three and a half years staving off the desire of a mutual attraction despite the intimacy of working closely with each other every day.”
On their second day on the island, McCormick and Williams got some time on their own together. During a “picture perfect” walk on the beach at sunset, they finally kissed.
Producer Lloyd Schwartz quickly realized something was going on between the two Brady Bunch stars. He “kept a close eye” on McCormick and Williams through the rest of the trip. But once they returned to California, the romance continued. However, it turned out to be “an on-and-off-again game,” McCormick said, rather than a serious relationship. Williams dated other girls, and she was unwilling to commit to anything long-term.
“As always with us,” McCormick wrote, “the timing was off.”
Williams and McCormick’s teenage flirtation cooled after The Brady Bunch was canceled in 1974. She later went on to marry Michael Cummings in 1985. They are still married today. Williams has been married three times, including to his current wife, Tina Mahnia, whom he wed in 2017.
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