The Brady Bunch Actor Eve Plumb Shares Middle Sister Jan Stories and More in New Memoir (Exclusive)

The Brady Bunch actress Eve Plumb is set to share behind-the-scenes stories about playing America’s most memorable middle child in her brand new memoir.

PEOPLE has an exclusive first look at Plumb’s Happiness Included: Jan Brady and Beyond, which is set to be released in April 2026 from publisher Kensington Books.

Plumb, 67, who is recognized worldwide as the show’s Jan, “shares the behind-the-scenes story of her colorful and impressively versatile Hollywood career” in her upcoming memoir, as well as “revelatory recollections of her off-camera life along the way — complete with many photos from her private archives,” per the book’s official synopsis.

The book takes a deeper look inside Plumb’s six decades as a TV and stage actress, which began “when a talent agent in her Los Angeles neighborhood suggested that the [then] 6-year-old audition for a national TV commercial.”

Plumb — who starred as Jan on the beloved sitcom from 1969 to 1974 — tells PEOPLE of the upcoming release, “Over the years, many people have asked me to share my stories for their book. But I finally said to myself, if I’m going to share my stories, it’s going to be in MY book.” 

“I had a unique childhood that I would like to share now because looking back, it gives me joy,” the actress adds.

After The Brady Bunch, Plumb starred in multiple other projects, including the 1976 TV movie Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway (where she played against type as a teenage sex worker) and in a 1978 TV miniseries adaptation of Little Women. She was the only member of the cast who didn’t return for the 1976 variety series The Brady Bunch Hour because of her other commitments.

Plumb returned to the Brady world for the 1981 TV movie The Brady Girls Get Married, playing Jan once again, and she and Maureen McCormick, who played oldest sister Marcia, starred together in the short-lived sitcom The Brady Brides. She also appeared in the 1988 TV film A Very Brady Christmas and the 1990 series The Bradys.

Read an exclusive excerpt from Happiness Included: Jan Brady and Beyond below.

“Well, she looks like our girl.”

I was in a small room with adults who created television shows. I was comfortable being there, the only child in the room, because I had been in similar situations for four years already, starting at age 6. These two adults were looking at me, but talking to each other.

I could almost always tell when I made television producers feel like they found the right child actress for the role, whether it was a commercial, a TV pilot, or a made-for-TV movie. Eager to please, I learned early in my career how to read the room, follow suggestions and “imagine” myself into being the little girl described in the audition breakdowns.

On this Los Angeles afternoon, I was sitting on a couch across from The Brady Bunch creator Sherwood Schwartz and veteran TV show director John Rich in a small studio office bungalow. Their “girl” who they thought I resembled was Florence Henderson, the actress who would play my TV mom. My own mother was elated and also surprised that my agent had called to report that I was being requested for a callback interview. My first audition for this TV pilot, weeks before, had seemed to go nowhere fast.

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During a hot summer morning, I had been sent for a rare “cattle call” audition. My auditions usually involved signing into a small waiting room with stackable utility chairs and four or five other little girls around my age, sitting with their tense or talkative moms.

One at a time, we would be called into the casting office alone to read for the role or commercial for any number of adults, sometimes two, sometimes up to 10 people. There was never a camera in the room and no one recorded the audition. It was all decided on through this one in-person meeting.

This cattle call audition was a first for me, but my agent thought it was worthwhile. There was a new family sitcom being cast that required six children: three girls and three boys. Every Southern California kid with show business aspirations, or whose mom wanted them to be a little star, were at the cattle call: boys in button-up shirts and polished shoes, girls in freshly ironed dresses. 

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Gathered in the studio parking lot and under the noon sun, casting assistants with clipboards divided us into groups according to gender, age, size and hair color. I was shuffled between two groups of blond-haired girls, one group taller and older than me, and the other smaller and younger.

A while later I was released with the explanation that I was too young to be the oldest daughter and too old to be the youngest girl. No one had tried me out in the middle. Who knows why. My interview was over in 10 minutes. I never read a single line. There were no additional call-backs to make sure I had chemistry with other potential cast members.

All I knew was that I looked like their “girl.” A phone call came from my agent a few hours after we returned home. My beaming mother gave me the news that I had been cast as the middle child of the three daughters. My name would be Jan.

From Happiness Included: Jan Brady and Beyond, by Eve Plumb. Excerpted with permission from Kensington Books, copyright 2026.

Happiness Included: Jan Brady and Beyond will be published April 28, 2026 and is now available for preorder, wherever books are sold.