Life Is Not a Stage: From Broadway Baby to a Lovely Lady and Beyond

Florence Henderson

Center Street, Sep 20, 2011 - Biography & Autobiography - 288 pages

For millions of people around the world, Carol Brady is synonymous with motherhood, but growing up as the youngest of ten children in rural Indiana in the aftermath of the Great Depression, Florence Henderson lived a life quite different from that of the quintessential TV mom she later played on television.
Florence's father was a dirt-poor tobacco tenant farmer who was nearly fifty years old when he married Florence's twenty-five-year-old mother, and was nearly seventy when Florence was born. Florence's childhood was full of deprivation and abandonment. Her father was an alcoholic at a time when there was no rehab or help for the disease. Their home rarely had electricity or running water. When she was twelve, Florence's mother left the family to work in Cleveland and never returned.
Florence opens up about her childhood, as well as the challenges she's faced as an adult, including stage fright, postpartum depression, her extramarital affairs, divorce, her hearing loss, and heart problems. She writes with honesty and wisdom of how her faith and ability to survive has brought her through rough times to a life of profound joy and purpose.

What people are saying

Review: Life Is Not a Stage: From Broadway Baby to a Lovely Lady and Beyond

User Review  - Sue - Goodreads

I enjoyed reading about this woman that I have watched perform so often.

Review: Life Is Not a Stage: From Broadway Baby to a Lovely Lady and Beyond

User Review  - Jamie - Goodreads

Very engaging book. If you are looking for a Brady Bunch tell all, this is the wrong book for you. It is a interesting memoir full of small little lessons about life in general.

About the author

Florence Agnes Henderson was born in Dale, Indiana on February 14, 1934. She studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts for a year before being cast in Wish You Were Here, a musical comedy about a summer camp for grown-ups. She was then cast as the female lead, Laurey, in the national tour of Oklahoma! Her stage work went on to include the musicals Fanny and The Girl Who Came to Supper on Broadway and the national tour of The Sound of Music. She is best known as the sitcom mom on The Brady Bunch, which ran from September 1969 to March 1974. She also appeared on the television shows The Bell Telephone Hour, Oldsmobile Music Theater, and The Dean Martin Show. She was the host of Country Kitchen, a cooking show on TNN, for nine years beginning in 1985. She appeared in several feature films including Song of Norway, Shakes the Clown, and For Heaven's Sake. She died from heart failure on November 24. 2016 at the age of 82.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Life Is Not a Stage: From Broadway Baby to a Lovely Lady and Beyond
• Author: Florence Henderson
• Contributor: Joel Brokaw
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Center Street, 2011
• ISBN: 1455504912, 9781455504916
• Length: 288 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Entertainment & Performing Arts; Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs; Biography & Autobiography / Rich & Famous; Biography & Autobiography / Women; Humor / Topic / Celebrity & Popular Culture; Performing Arts / Television / Genres / Comedy; Performing Arts / Theater / Broadway & Musicals