Short Takes : Henderson Recalls Musical Bid

PHOENIX — Florence Henderson says she regrets arriving in Hollywood about the time the studios stopped making musicals.

“I loved those old film musicials,” said Henderson, best known as the matriarch of “The Brady Bunch.” “I grew up in this tiny town in southern Indiana where going to the movies was the biggest excitement of the week. I wanted to be Jane Powell.”

She even tried to break into show business as a singer, at a talent show staged by bandleader Horace Heidt, but the results were less than successful, she recalled in a recent interview.

“I was such a kid. I didn’t know you had to bring your own piano player. I showed up with a Jane Powell record. On one side, she was singing ‘It’s a Most Unusual Day’ and on the other was a French song,” she said.

“ ‘What are you going to sing?’ Mr. Heidt asked. ‘These two songs,’ I said. ‘Where’s your piano player?’ he wanted to know. ‘Oh, I don’t have one,’ I said. That’s what I did, too. Of course, I didn’t win.”