Growing Up Brady: I Was a Teenage Greg, Special Collector's Edition (15 page)

I was up to my ears in adrenaline.

You remember the story. Greg spends most of his time in
Hawaii surfing, until he's cursed by that evil tiki and wipes out into
the treacherous island foam. Is he dead? Tune in next week and
find out. It was the "Brady" cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers.

Actually, I didn't give a rat's ass what the story was about. All I
cared about was hitting the beach. This trip was gonna be a dream
come true.

But there was a catch. Turns out there was a lot of concern
among Paramount's necktie-bedecked higher-ups about me doing
my own stunts. The bean counters didn't fully fathom my status as
"surf God" and were worried that I might do something silly like
... oh, I don't know ... drown.

Anyway, right around the time I was "sex-waxing" my "stick",
word trickled downstream that I would be allowed to enter the
water and paddle around, but some other guy would be hired as
my stunt double, and he'd do all the actual surfing.

Major bummer!

Hmmm ... there was no way in hell that I was gonna go along
with this nauseating turn of events quietly. Bob Reed may have
had his script problems, but I had my pride. However, I had no
idea how to battle this obvious case of corporate psychosis. After a
great deal of thought, I decided to fall back on the course of action
that had served me so well in my youth: I'd simply look the
authority figures squarely in the eye and lie like a cheap toupee.

I appealed to the producers shamelessly, inventing stories
about how I was legendary in southern California as the recognized leader of the Cowabunga Surf Movement (I made it up). I
told them that I was globally ranked in competitive surfing events,
and that I could surf Oahu's six-foot surf with a sandwich in one
hand and a Marlboro in the other. Basically, I said whatever I
thought might actually change their minds.

The producers looked at me as if I were something they'd like
to scrape off the bottom of their shoes, but they had no way to disprove my outlandish claims, and because I just plain wouldn't shut
up, they eventually caved in, took me at my word, and pointed me
toward the beach.

The surf was definitely looking up!

Once again, my budding acting skills and bold-faced lies had
served me well. I may not have been able to live up to my selfappointed world-class status, but I was a good surfer, and very safe
in the water.

Or so I thought. Two weeks later, Oahu's pounding surf would
come close to prematurely ending my career-and my life!

Shortly after I'd convinced the powers brokers at Paramount
that it would be in the company's best interest to let me surf for
myself on screen, I also convinced them that in order to ensure a
good-looking on-camera ride, a seven-day Hawaiian test-surf (at
their expense) was vitally necessary.

They bought it.

My real-life brothers and I whooped over this bit of good fortune and caught the next plane.

We touched down, checked in, and spent the next week riding
every wave and soaking up every bit of sunshine that the Oahu
shore could throw at us. Seven days later, the rest of the Bradys
arrived and found us sunburnt, waterlogged, shriveled, and happy.

Almost immediately, we got to work, settling in with a meeting
that outlined our entire Hawaiian production schedule. It was a typically dull, typically businesslike function, but it did get exciting
when they told me about how the city of Honolulu was actually
going to let us lease Queen's Beach (and all of its waves) for two
whole days.

Why is that exciting? Simple. Our "lease" meant that the beach,
the ocean, and all of the people in both places would be part of
our company. It also guaranteed that "Greg" would spend fortyeight hours as the surf area's "Big Kahuna."

You see, in any halfway-decent surfing spot (and especially in
Hawaii), there are always more good surfers than good waves.
Needless to say, the competition for curls can be cutthroat, and
the overcrowding generally assures that most of the best waves
pass you by. But now, for two glorious days, everybody on a surfboard except for me would be an extra, paid to paddle around and
make sure that Greg got the big ones. I was thrilled.

Our first day of filming dawned warm, clear, and full of excitement. We all assembled on the beach, ate breakfast, worked on
our tans, and went over the breakdown of the day. Our schedule
called for some shots of the Bradys on the beach, some swimming,
and finally my long-awaited surfathon-not exactly the proverbial
day in the salt mines. But before it was over, the salt mines would
seem a cinch by comparison.

The grips set up an enormous raft, complete with cameraman,
camera, and elaborate braces that held 'em both in'place. They set
sail. At the same time, I paddled out about a quarter-mile, found
the surf line (the spot where the waves break), and started to
rehearse.

The conditions were picture-postcard perfect: warm water, blue
skies, and surf that was consistent, happening, and breaking at
about five feet. With a heightened heartbeat, I took my place
among the sea gulls, seaweed, and local surfing extras, waiting anxiously for that all-important first wave. It was heaven-except for
one thing.

Our shooting schedule forced us to shoot at low tide. Now,
that's normally no big deal, but in Hawaii it can be a nightmare.
Oahu's ocean floor is made up not of soft sand but of hard, solid,
and often jagged coral. Wipe out at high tide, and there's about six
feet between you and the ocean floor; wipe out at low tide, and
you have as little as eighteen inches! You also have big, big trouble.
The only way you can avoid getting sliced and diced is to fall absolutely flat and skim the water's surface, using your body as a sort of
human boogie board. For the first hour, things went great. I was
riding waves, cranking bottom turns, pulling off "roller coasters,"
and finishing with flyaway kickouts. Then it happened.

Guess who wiped out at low tide.

Yep, with cameras rolling, I managed to catch an overhead wave
with good shape and started jamming across it's wall. Things were
getting hot, and I was picking up speed when-

WHAM!!!

A section of the wave closed out, and I flew through the air,
careening toward an exposed coral head that was sticking up out
of the water by a good two feet, and drooling over its chance to
chew me to shreds. A sickening feeling of total helplessness
washed over me, and with a heartfelt cry of "SHIIIIIIIIIT!!!" I sailed
toward my doom.

Greg's wipeout was a lot more spontaneous than planned.

Back on the beach, they'd seen the fall, noticed my head tearing
toward the jagged coral, and seen me disappear under the wave's
white-water. They panicked, and at once my dad (who was watching from the beach), the camera guys, the lifeguards, and a handful
of gawkers were barreling into the surf, determined (I suppose) to
scoop up whatever was left of me and see that it got a proper burial. The cameraman continued to film.

Fortunately, I hadn't become fish food. As I fell, the top half of
the wave broke over me, and I tucked, using its force to turn
myself completely around. I was still on a coral collision course,
but now, thanks to luck, reflexes, and the forces of nature, my
head was spared.

My, feet, however got turned into hamburger meat.

Once I realized that I wasn't dead, I meekly bobbed up to the
surface and waved my arms to signal the beach that I was okay.

Relieved, everyone calmed down, and it wasn't long before the
multitudinous cries of happiness turned into taunts of "I told you
so!"

In short, things were back to normal, and the worst part of the
whole thing was that it cut short my fantasy day in the surf.

Coulda been a lot worse.

A postscript: When we got back to L.A., the network took one
look at Greg's wipeout and got nervous about the footage being
"too frightening for the nature of the show." However, after some
debate, the shot was indeed included.

I figure I've wiped out on syndicated worldwide reruns about
thirty-seven hundred times, and the scene still scares the hell out
of me every time I see it.

You don't think there was anything to that Curse of the Tiki, do
you?

hortly after fishing Greg out of the Pacific, the Bradys
were up, working, and back on schedule once more. We
were shooting a three part episode, and Paramount
_ wanted to make sure that our viewers knew we were
actually in Hawaii not just faking it on a soundstage somewhere.
Therefore, the Brady Bunch spent almost all of their time in
Hawaii engaging in outdoor activities and wandering through the
lush tropical scenery of Oahu.

One particular run-in with the local seascape left us soggy,
shaken, and just plain scared.

It started when the Bradys, eager to enjoy the gorgeous
Hawaiian waters, loaded themselves into an outrigger (it's a sort
of extra-long seafaring canoe) and paddled out into the Hawaiian
surf. The script called for us to row out, catch a wave, and ride it
toward shore. The locals do it all the time and make it look easy,
but of course we Bradys lacked their experience and coordination-and in the case of Susan Olsen, the ability to swim.

We boarded our craft shakily, but after several moments we
actually seemed to have it almost under control. At about this
time, a second outrigger, full of cameramen grips, and professional paddlers floated up next to us and began filming our
pathetic first cracks at group seamanship. Little did they know,
the most exciting scene they'd film that day wouldn't be scripted,
or expected. Instead, carelessness, poor judgment, and lack of
sea savvy would combine to ambush us all.

First of all, none of us were wearing life jackets. We had discussed donning them, but our director decided that they were
big, bulky, and an ugly shade of orange. Worst of all, they'd hide
the girls' pretty Hawaiian shirts. We quickly forsook safety in
favor of a "beauty shot."

The floating camera crew.
(Courtesy Sherwood Schwartz)