Bracken Chose the Easy Pace Off Camera : Former Child Actor Left Hollywood to Open Pool Service, Coach Golf at Northridge
“The Brady Bunch” girls had hair of gold, so brown-haired lads were cast as Brady boys, leaving towhead Jim Bracken as a minor character instead of a member of the TV-sitcom family.
What Bracken missed in the television world he made up for on the playing fields of the San Fernando Valley in youth football and baseball games and golf tournaments.
Today, Bracken, 34, is in his sixth season as golf coach at Cal State Northridge and also owns a pool-cleaning company. His income is supplemented by royalties from his days as a child actor.
The grandson of writer Valentine Davies, a 1947 Academy Award winner for “Miracle on 34th Street,” Bracken got into acting with the help of a neighbor.
His first part, as a 5-year-old, was a commercial for a first-aid spray. In all, he has appeared in 40 commercials and several films, including “With Six You Get Egg Roll” with Doris Day and Brian Keith and “Secrets of the Pirates Inn,” a Disney movie.
On “The Brady Bunch,” Bracken played several characters. In his most prominent role, he was cast as Buddy Hinton, a bully who teased Cindy Brady about her lisp. Peter Brady took boxing lessons to defend Cindy and knocked Hinton down with a punch that loosened his tooth and gave him a lisp.
Bracken enjoyed acting, but he liked sports more. When one of the Disney movies ran over budget and interfered with Bracken’s participation in a Little League All-Star game he was heartbroken.
“That was very traumatic,” said Bracken, who arrived in the third inning.
Bracken, a graduate of Monroe High, played golf for two seasons at Valley College and two more at Northridge.
After graduating from Northridge, he earned playing privileges at Los Angeles Country Club by working on the driving range. While considering a career as a professional golfer he became involved in the pool business. “I didn’t have the dedication to turn pro,” Bracken said.
An occasional competitor in amateur tournaments, Bracken won the 1991 Oxnard City Open, tied for fourth in the ’91 Ventura County Amateur, reached the third round of match play in this year’s Trans-Mississippi Amateur and finished 12th in the ’91 Los Angeles City tournament.
Although he still pays his Screen Actors Guild dues, he does not have an agent and his roles are few and far between. “I wasn’t interested in pursuing a full-time career in acting,” Bracken said. “My pool business was going well and I could juggle it around golf.”
Few of his players are aware of his Hollywood past, but the children of Bracken’s friends have spotted him in “Brady Bunch” and Disney reruns.
“It’s fun once in a while to talk about it,” Bracken said, recalling a pudding commercial when he was bucked off a horse and a candy bar commercial in which he sat on a roller coaster surrounded by monkeys.
The residuals also are nice.
“They fill my gas tank up a couple times,” Bracken said.