Several 1970’s sit-coms tried so hard to change hair color of an actor/actress to match the rest of a family, like Mike Lookinland’s hair in the Brady Bunch. So, why was Danny Bonaduce selected to play “Danny Partridge” with his red hair? Maybe some Partridge fan knows the inside story why this seemed to work for the director or producer. It never really sat right with me, sorry to say.
I’m not sure he really played bass, either. Musta had a good agent…
Yeah, but the Partridge Family didn’t really have a unified look/hair color modeled after their parent like the Brady boys or the Brady girls. For example, David Cassidy and Susan Dey didn’t like anything like Shirley Jones.
Personally, I always thought Danny was the result of a fling Mom had with Reuben Kincaid, but YMMV.
Are there any examples other than The Brady Bunch where child actors were chosen because their hair color matched their supposed parents’ hair color?
Ozzie and Harriet. Oh, wait. Those were their real kids.
Not sure if this counts but I just some some behind the scenes type thing on Home Improvement. Before Patricia Richardson (Jill, the mom) was hired, there was a different mom on board. She had blonde hair, as did the kids. When Jill was hired, the kids were concerned they would lose their jobs because people might question why two brunette parents have three blonde kids.
I don’t recall if the kids were hired because of their hair color, but there was some concern that they could be fired over it.
If nothing else, it shows that some thought goes into hair color.
One of my favorite stories involves children, although not child actors. In the original pilot of Numbers, Len Cariou (currently Tom Selleck’s Dad on Blue Bloods) played the Dad, and Gabriel Macht played the FBI agent brother. Then they cast David Krumholtz as the math genius brother. Suddenly the rest of the family just didn’t look right at all, and the other parts were recast with the very Jewish Judd Hirsch and Rob Morrow.
The drummer kid on Brady was recast with a blond boy. Most people think of red and blond on the same spectrum. Plus Bonaduce was hired for his attitude (onscreen, not off.)
red hair can be recessive, so it pops up even though the parents both may have dark hair.
Partridge, not Brady. When Jeremy Gelbwaks was booted from the show, his family came east and he wound up at my elementary school for a little over a year. Tough break, but that show did not launch many distinguished careers, so maybe he dodged a bullet.
Real families have variety in hair colors. Why wouldn’t TV families?
Do the Farkles count? 
Maybe a stretch to call it “casting”, but my favorite story about Gilligan’s Island is that in most of the cartoon versions Ginger is drawn as a platinum blonde, because the producers were afraid that if she was drawn as a redhead Tina Louise might sue them for using her image.
This was actually the topic of one episode, in which Danny was convinced he was adopted. It was explained that he had very blond hair when he was a baby.
Red hair occurs in every culture, in every race, all over the world. A blonde man and a brown haired woman gave red-haired twins. One of them has a buzz cut, the other his hair looks almost exactly like bright orange yarn atop his head.
A friend of mine has a mother who’s a super-fair blonde and a father who’s a flaming redhead. His oldest sister is a pale blonde like their mother, the next sister is a flaming redhead like their father… and his hair is so dark it’s almost black (and yes, he does resemble his father in other ways).
It took me a long time to figure out the genetics of that one.
Hair color is also one of those things that has multiple genes controlling it. One theory I’ve read say it’s mainly controlled by a brown vs blonde gene, and a non-red vs red gene, with blonde and red being the recessive genes. That said, this study suggests that it’s even more complicated than that, with it being possible for two red heads to have a non-red headed child, which wouldn’t be possible if only those two genes controlled hair color, and if blond and red were recessive.
Of course, this is the reverse case of the Partridge family. In that case, it should be easier to get a red head out of the mix.
At any rate, I’ve never noticed or paid attention to the color of the children’s hair in TV shows and movies and, well, to be honest, real life. My aunt and uncle both have very dark brown hair. All three of their kids are blondes. Since brown hair is dominant, this isn’t anywhere near as rare as the reverse: two blondes having a brown-haired baby. From what I’ve researched, it is possible (though quite rare), even though a simple Punnett square would suggest it isn’t, suggesting that hair color is a more complex process than high school biology class would have you believe.
“Game of Thrones” hadn’t been written yet.
Depends on what the non-red color is. Two redheads having a blond child is no more difficult to explain than two brown-haired parents with a blond child.
Dont forget that Mrs Partridge dyed her hair so we dont really know the real color, and in several eps it was strawberry blonde so she could have been a natural redhead! And her maiden name is Renfrew so there’s Scots blood in the family.
mc