Mike Lookinland: You Won’t Believe What He’s Doing Now…
Mike Lookinland is best known for playing the youngest Brady boy, Bobby. Since then he hasn’t been seen as much, you won’t believe why!
Image Source/ HGTV Canada
What’s his back story?..
Michael Paul Lookinland was born on December 19, 1960. He is the middle of three children and his younger brother, Todd, also was a child actor – starring in The Blue Bird with Elizabeth Taylor.
He grew up in Mount Pleasant, Utah and knew he wanted to be an actor from a young age.
By 7 he was doing acting work, appearing in commercials for Cheerios and Band-Aid.
His big break through…
In 1968, at just eight years old, he was offered two main roles for upcoming television series’: Bobby Brady on The Brady Bunch and Eddie Corbett on The Courtship of Eddie’s Father.
After discussing his options with his family, they all decided that the role of Bobby would be better as there would be people his age on set.
However, this choice did come with some drawbacks. Since his hair is naturally a sandy hue and wavy in nature, his hair was often dyed dark and straightened to match his on-screen brothers, Christopher Knight (Peter Brady) and Barry Williams (Greg Brady).
Occasionally, the hair dye would run onto his face as the camera lights were so hot.
In the final two seasons, the shows producers allowed his natural hair colour to be shown.
Video Source/ YouTube
The iconic show ended up becoming a family affair as his brother Todd was cast in the pilot for Kelly’s Kids – a Brady Bunch spin-off. Unfortunately for Todd the series was never bought.
Todd and Mike’s mum, Karen, occasionally took pictures The Brady Bunch cast to enhance her amateur photography career.
Becoming fed up of the Brady name and fame…
Mike, Maureen McCormick (Marcia Brady), Susan Olsen (Cindy Brady) and Florence Henderson (Carol Brady) all starred in an episode of Donny and Marie. This episode was inspiration for The Brady Bunch Hour.
However, Mike had no interest to do the spin-off show, so tried to get out of it by demanding his salary to be doubled.
Annoyingly for him the producers agreed and also double his fellow cast mates’ wages.
Despite the increase in money, Mike was still uninterested. He would often skip rehearsals and his missing attendance got so bad that Florence (Carol Brady) found him wandering around the car park and told him some hard truths. She said that this is their job and that,
‘if his heart wasn’t in it, then neither should he be’.
He got his act together and starred as Bobby in every subsequent The-Brady-Bunch-related TV series or movie except, The Brady Girls Get Married.
His other ventures…
He was the voice of Oblio in the 1971 movie, The Point!.
In 1974 he starred in the 1974 film, The Towering Inferno alongside Jennifer Jones and Paul Newman.
Other TV shows that Mike has starred in are The Secrets of Isis, Little House on the Prairie, Funny Face, The Boy from Dead Man’s Bayou and The Stand.
Image Source/ The Brady Bunch Wiki
What is Mike up to now?..
He attended the University of Utah after he graduated high school, but ended up dropping out not long after starting.
He decided that he wanted to become a movie production assistant and cameraman.
In 1987 Mike married Kelly Wermuth and together the pair have two sons: Scott, who was born in 1990, and Joe, who was born in 1993.
Kelly and Mike met when they worked together on Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers. Kelly was an extra and Mike was a production assistant.
Mike crashed his car in November 1997. His car had to be scraped and, luckily, only had cuts and bruises. Test results showed that his alcohol levels were more than three times the legal limit for Utah (0.08% – Mike’s was 0.258%).
He was eventually sentenced to 24 hours of community service as well as being fined $1,500.
At the time, Mike was an alcoholic. He became sober after the accident and said:
‘the choice between sobering up or drinking became the choice of living or dying’.
Sometime in the 2000s, Mike’s wife, Kelly, brought home a library book on how to make concrete countertops. The former actor read the book and decided that this was the career for him. He quit his cameraman job and now runs his own business in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he makes custom concrete countertops.
Fun facts about Mike Lookinland…
Mike is a self-proclaimed ‘Deadhead’. He has seen the band Grateful Dead more than 100 times!
Video Source/ YouTube
He is missing the tip of one of his fingers! He accidentally cut it off with a table saw and the doctors told him it was too small to be sewn back on.
Thankfully, it has never affected his career.
