Former Kroftette turns teacher

Published 8:27 pm Tuesday, November 2, 2010

EDMONDS — When Florence Henderson was voted off “Dancing with the Stars” earlier this month, some viewers saw Mrs. Brady, the iconic mother with “hair of gold” from “The Brady Bunch.” For Edmonds resident Linda Hoxit-Smith, it was a former colleague who exited the stage.

Hoxit-Smith was a dancer — a Kroftette — on the late-1970s television series “The Brady Bunch Variety Hour.” The show aired for less than one year before it was taken off the air.

The short-lived variety show has been chronicled in “Love to Love You Bradys: The Bizarre Story of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour” by Ted Nichelson, Susan Olsen and Lisa Sutton. The sort of yearbook, published last year, shows pictures and stories of the actors and performers involved with the show with Hoxit-Smith appearing on a majority of the pages.

When a friend and colleague contacted Hoxit-Smith to gauge her interest in interviews for the book with Nichelson, she was eager to help out.

“I said ‘heck yeah,’” she says. “It’s nice to have memories and accolades for us.”

During the 1970s and 1980s there were hundreds of entertainers who had variety shows similar to the “Brady Bunch Variety Hour,” Hoxit-Smith says.

“It was everywhere and there’s nothing like this anymore,” she says. “There are nice memories for the Kroftettes. We were the only group on TV who did synchronized swimming.”

Hoxit-Smith isn’t without a sense of humor about her three-month stint on the show that was voted the fourth “Worst Show of All Time” by TV Guide and was parodied on “That 70s Show.”

“We weren’t that bad,” she says. “It wasn’t a bunch of cheap schlock.” But compared to other TV shows on at the time, it missed the mark, she concedes.

The dancer and actress’ career didn’t end with the Bradys. Hoxit-Smith has performed on Broadway, in motion pictures, television series and commercials. She dated rocker Al Kooper and is pictured on the cover of his “Act like Nothing’s Wrong” album. His song, “Turn My Head towards Home,” was about her, she says.

More than 25 years ago, Hoxit-Smith returned to Washington for “a normal life.” She teaches acting at the Seattle-based John Robert Powers School, an acting and modeling school for youths.

“I get my kicks out of teaching,” she says. “I perform while I teach.”

For motivation, she places headshots of her students on her office wall after they have booked an agent or made it onto a television show or movie.

“I like to brag about my students,” she says. “It’s a big deal to make it onto the wall.”

She empathizes with her students going through auditions, a “living hell” she doesn’t miss.

“Seventy percent of how you’re chosen is based off your physicality,” she says. “You’re at their mercy. It doesn’t have be based off beauty or being handsome necessarily.”

She is honest with her teenaged students that the road ahead is nerve-wracking.

“Not all of my students are trying to get into the industry, some are just trying it out and they just move on,” she says. “Sometimes it’s not what you think it’ll be or as easy.”