Brady Bunch Star Eve Plumb Shared Her Experience Working With Angela Lansbury

The show may be long off the air, but Jan Brady from the "The Brady Bunch" barely looks any different today. Millions of viewers empathized with Jan's middle-child woes and her persistently earnest efforts to stand out from overachieving older sister Marcia and her adorable kid sis Cindy. Eve Plumb, who began acting professionally at the age of six, appeared in nearly all of the series' spinoffs (with the exception of the short-lived, and pretty cringeworthy, "Brady Bunch Variety Hour"). The actor has always embraced her signature role, with one notable exception: Eve Plumb wasn't a fan of the famous "Brady Bunch" line "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!" (she felt it sounded too much like a bullying tease). 

The former child star went on to numerous TV appearances — including one you might have forgotten. In 1985, she guest-starred on "Murder, She Wrote," the beloved mystery drama starring Angela Lansbury. The episode in question, "Jessica Behind Bars," found Cabot Cove's favorite amateur sleuth taken hostage by the inmates of the local women's prison where she was investigating the murder of the resident doctor. Plumb played a prisoner named Tug, which was about as big of a departure from good-girl Jan as she could get (then again, she played a young sex worker in "Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway"). 

The actor recalled her experience working on "Murder, She Wrote" in a 2026 interview with Remind magazine. "That was fun," Plumb enthused, adding that she was offered the guest role without even having to audition. The former teen star had nothing but praise for the iconic Lansbury, sharing, "She's another one of those actresses that is just no-nonsense," As Plumb acknowledged, "She gets it done. She's very, very pleasant and professional."

Eve Plumb's guest appearance on "Murder, She Wrote" was the only time she ever worked with the show's legendary star. Heartbreakingly, Angela Lansbury died in 2022, closing out a dazzling career that included leading roles on Broadway, timeless films including "The Manchurian Candidate" and "Gaslight," and, of course, her voice work in "Beauty and the Beast." Lansbury's iconic "Murder, She Wrote" style lives on among millennials who scout thrift stores for trendy grandmacore outfits too. Meanwhile, Plumb has worked steadily since her "Brady Bunch" days, largely on other TV series. 

Among them: "Days of Our Lives," "That '70s Show," "Law & Order: SVU," "Army Wives," and "Blue Bloods." Not being tied to any one project in particular has given Plumb time to work on her non-acting passions. She's a talented painter whose subject matter ranges from still life portraits to black-and-white scenes inspired by film noir classics. Most notably, Plumb created three oil paintings to be featured in the HGTV special "A Very Brady Renovation." The show brought Plumb and all five of her TV siblings together to recreate the sitcom's sets inside the actual house used for the exterior shots. 

Despite the grim setting of her "Murder, She Wrote" episode, the former child star still recalls the experience fondly as "a good five days" working alongside Lansbury, Yvonne DeCarlo, and other castmates. She even got to ditch her prim Jan Brady hair, consulting with the studio's hairstylist to get an over-the-top frizzy 'do. "I managed to get it on film before producers saw it, and they were mad," Plumb told Remind. "Because it was crazy [hair] and it looked nothing like Eve Plumb. That's the point, man. I'm Tug!"