Florence Henderson,  "The Brady Bunch" mom, dies                 
                                                                                                        
LOS ANGELES (AP)  Florence Henderson, who went from Broadway star to  become one of America's most beloved television moms in "The Brady  Bunch," has died, her manager and her publicist said. She was 82.
 Henderson died Thursday night at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los  Angeles, after being hospitalized the day before, said her publicist,  David Brokaw. Henderson had suffered heart failure, her manager Kayla  Pressman said in a statement.
 Family and friends had surrounded Henderson's hospital bedside, Pressman said.
 On the surface, "The Brady Bunch" with Henderson as its ever-cheerful  matriarch Carol Brady, resembled just another TV sitcom about a family  living in suburban America and getting into a different wacky situation  each week.
 But well after it ended its initial run, in 1974, the show resonated  with audiences, and it returned to television in various forms again and  again, including "The Brady Bunch Hour" in 1977, "The Brady Brides" in  1981 and "The Bradys" in 1990. It was also seen endlessly in reruns.
 "It represents what people always wanted: a loving family. It's such a  gentle, innocent, sweet show, and I guess it proved there's always an  audience for that," Henderson said in 1999.
 Premiering in 1969, it also was among the first shows to introduce to  television the blended family. As its theme song reminded viewers each  week, Henderson's Carol was a single mother raising three daughters when  she met her TV husband, Robert Reed's Mike Brady, a single father who  was raising three boys.
 The eight of them became "The Brady Bunch," with a quirky housekeeper, played by Ann B. Davis, thrown into the mix.
 The blonde, ever-smiling Henderson was already a Broadway star when  the show began, having originated the title role in the musical "Fanny."  But after "The Brady Bunch," she would always be known to fans as Carol  Brady.
 "We had to have security guards with us. Fans were hanging on our  doors. We couldn't go out by ourselves. We were like the Beatles!" she  said of the attention the show brought the cast.
 Like the Beatles, there was even a Saturday morning cartoon version  called "Brady Kids," although Henderson was not in that show.
 She and Reed did return, however, for "The Brady Bunch Hour, "The  Brady Brides" and "The Bradys." So did most of the original cast.
 She was also back again in 1995 when a new cast was assembled for  "The Brady Bunch Movie," a playful spoof of the original show. This time  she was Grandma Brady opposite Shelly Long's Carol. Numerous memoirs  also kept interest in the show alive, as cast members revealed they were  more than just siblings off camera. Barry Williams, who played eldest  son Greg Brady, would confess to having a crush on his TV stepmom.  Henderson, in her own book, denied having any relationship with  Williams, but did acknowledge a fling with former New York City mayor  John Lindsay.
 Henderson was a 19-year-old drama student in New York when she landed a one-line role in the play "Wish You Were Here."
 Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were so impressed they made  her the female lead in a 1952 road tour of "Oklahoma!" When the show  returned to Broadway for a revival in 1954, she continued in the role  and won rave reviews.
 "She is the real thing, right of of a butter churn somewhere," wrote Walter Kerr of the New York Herald Tribune.
 To broaden her career, Henderson took acting, dancing, singing and guitar lessons, even studying French and Italian.
 She went on to play Maria in a road production of "The Sound of  Music," was Nellie Forbush in a revival of "South Pacific" and was back  on Broadway with Jose Ferrer in "The Girl Who Came to Supper" in 1963.
 She made her movie debut in 1970 in "Song of Norway," based on the 1944 operetta with music by Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg.
 Her career nearly came to an end in 1965 when she suddenly lost her  hearing while appearing in "The King and I" in Los Angeles, and was  diagnosed with a condition linked to heredity.
 "Corrective surgery in both ears restored my hearing," she said in 2007.
 As her TV career blossomed with "The Brady Bunch," Henderson also  began to make frequent TV guest appearances. She was the first woman to  host "The Tonight Show" for the vacationing Johnny Carson.
 For eight years she also commuted to Nashville to conduct a cooking  and talk series, "Country Kitchen," on The Nashville Network. The show  resulted in a book, "Florence Henderson's Short Cut Cooking."
 After "The Brady Bunch" ended its first run, Henderson alternated her  appearances in revivals of the show with guest appearances on other  programs, including "Hart to Hart," ''Fantasy Island" and "The Love  Boat."
 In later years she also made guest appearances on such shows as "Roseanne, "Ally McBeal" and "The King of Queens."
 The Los Angeles Times reports that she also became a commercial  spokeswoman and co-produced "Country Kitchen," a Nashville Network  series.
 Florence Agnes Henderson was born Feb. 14, 1934, in the small town of  Dale in southern Indiana. She was the 10th child of a tobacco  sharecropper of Irish descent.
 In grade school, she joined the choir at a Catholic church in Rockport, Ind.
 After high school she moved to New York, where she enrolled in a  two-year program at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, her studies  financed by a theatrical couple who had been impressed by her singing  when they saw her perform in high school.
 She dropped out of the program after one year, however, to take the role in "Wish You Were There."
 Henderson married theater executive Ira Bernstein and the couple had  four children before the union ended in divorce after 29 years.
 Her second husband, John Kappas, died in 2002.
 Pressman said she is survived by her children; Barbara, Joseph,  Robert and Lizzie, their respective spouses, and five grandchildren.