In his youth, Reed joined the 4-H agricultural club and showed calves, but was more interested in acting and music. In Oklahoma, his father, John Sr., worked as a turkey/cattle farmer. Reed spent his early childhood years in Navasota, Texas and Shawnee, Oklahoma, attending Woodrow Wilson Grade School before the family moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma.
His father worked for the government, and his mother was a homemaker. Reed attended the West Division School in Community Consolidated School District 62 until 1939. in the northern Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Illinois, the only child of Helen (née Teaverbaugh) and John Robert Rietz, who were high-school sweethearts and married at 18. The following year, Reed earned a third Emmy nomination for his role in the miniseries Roots. In 1976, he earned two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his guest-starring role in a two-part episode of Medical Center and for his work on the miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man. He later reprised his role of Mike Brady on several of the reunion programs. Marshall, and is best known for his role as patriarch Mike Brady, opposite Florence Henderson's role as Carol Brady, on the ABC sitcom The Brady Bunch, which aired from 1969 to 1974. He played Kenneth Preston on the legal drama The Defenders from 1961 to 1965 alongside E. Octo– May 12, 1992) was an American actor.
