When The Brady Bunch first hit the air in 1969, fans immediately fell in love with the sprawling yet tight-knit onscreen family. Eve Plumb famously played middle daughter Jan Brady, beginning the show as an insecure tween living in her popular sister Marcia's shadow and growing over the seasons into a more self-assured teen beauty.
Though the show was immediately popular, it rose to new heights of success after the network began airing syndicated reruns following the show's cancellation in 1974. At the time, Plumb opted out of some of the reprisals that followed in hopes of moving on to juicier roles. Now 63, the child actor has grown her career in unexpected ways—all while maintaining her connection to her Brady Bunch roots. Read on to see Eve Plumb now, and to find out what she's been up to in the decades since.
RELATED: Robbie Rist Played Cousin Oliver on The Brady Bunch. See Him Now at 57.
Eve Plumb says she got into acting by luck.
CBS Television DistributionA Southern California native, Plumb got her start as an actor at the age of six, but says neither she nor her family expected that she would ever become a star. "It just happened," she told Closer Weekly in 2018. "A children's agent moved next door to me when I was a kid and I got a commercial, then I kept getting more. I shot TV pilots, appeared on The Big Valley, then Lassie, then The Brady Bunch came."
She says her family was very involved in her acting career from the beginning, giving her the support and guidance she needed to succeed—both on set and behind the scenes on the business end. "My father ran my career and invested my money very well. My mother was with me on set every day. They never took a cent from me!" she told the magazine.
And she hasn't stopped acting since.
Jason Mendez/Getty ImagesAfter five seasons on The Brady Bunch, Plumb continued acting. On the big screen, she appeared in I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, Nowhere, and Blue Ruin. She also made TV appearances on The Love Boat, The Facts of Life, Murder, She Wrote, Fudge, That '70s Show, Blue Bloods, and many more.
Additionally, Plumb revisited her role as Jan in several Brady Bunch spin-offs. These included The Brady Girls Get Married, The Brady Bridges, The Bradys, and A Very Brady Christmas.
Plumb still finds it hard to branch out from her role as Jan.
Paul Bruinooge/Patrick McMullan via Getty ImagesWhile Plumb is grateful for her childhood success, she says that it was difficult to land new roles after The Brady Bunch wrapped in 1974. "I had so much success as a child," she told Closer Weekly. "But once you age out of being the cute kid, then what? If you're not ready for it, it can be very difficult," she said.
She shared in a separate interview with the radio show Sway in the Morning that at the time, people didn't regard the show as "relevant or interesting. We were very mainstream and saccharine." She added, "We were not like the other shows that were on TV, like All in the Family or Mod Squad. A show about a bunch of kids and their dog is not relevant in the time of Vietnam."
Plumb says she had to work that much harder to break out of typecast roles reminiscent of the middle Brady daughter. "I will audition for anything!" she said with a laugh. "Whatever comes my way!" On the occasion that her childhood fame does open doors for her, she takes it as a challenge to surprise the audience with something new. "If it gets me in the door [for jobs], then fine! If you're surprised to learn I can do other things, then great!" she told Closer Weekly.
RELATED: For more celeb news sent straight to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter.
She’s expanded her career in surprising ways.
Dia Dipasupil/WireImage via Getty ImagesSince 2010, the actor has been splitting her time between L.A. and New York with her husband of 26 years, Ken Pace. These days, she also splits her time between several careers: Though she still acts on TV and in theater, she is also a painter, voiceover artist, owner of a home goods line, and a real estate investor.
In 2019, Plumb appeared on the Primetime Emmy Award-nominated HGTV design show A Very Brady Renovation. Reuniting with five of her former Brady Bunch co-stars, Plumb and her fellow TV siblings helped renovate the real life Studio City, California house that was used for exterior shots of the Brady Bunch home.
"To be able to do this is an absolute dream job for me because it's something I just love so much," Plumb told E! News Online. "And to get to do it for such nice people and to get to do it for HGTV, I tell you, it couldn't have happened at a better time than when I was panicking about the state of the world."
RELATED: Marla Gibbs Played Florence on The Jeffersons. See Her Now at 90.
