Yours, Mine and Ours (1968 film)

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Yours, Mine and Ours
Image:Yours, Mine and Ours 1968.jpg
Directed by	Melville Shavelson
Produced by	Robert F. Blumofe
Written by	Bob Carroll Jr., Madelyn Davis
Starring	Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda, Van Johnson
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	24 April, 1968 (USA)
Running time	111 min.
Language	English
Budget	~ US$2,500,000
IMDb profile

Yours, Mine and Ours is a 1968 film, starring Henry Fonda, Lucille Ball and Van Johnson, based loosely on the story of Frank and Helen Beardsley, which later became Helen Beardsley's book, Who Gets the Drumstick?.

In the film, Fonda's character, Frank Beardsley, is a Navy warrant officer, while Ball's character, Helen North, is a nurse. Frank meets Helen when she takes care of his sick daughter. They immediately hit it off and go on a date, all the while both of them shying away from admitting their respective secrets; Frank has ten children and Helen has eight, from previous marriages that ended in death for both their spouses.

Although they fight it, their attraction is undeniable, and they quickly marry. After some initial tension, the eighteen children bond and make one large blended family.

The success of the movie partly inspired network approval of the television series The Brady Bunch (the original script for the series pilot was written well before this movie became a reality).

Among the child actors cast as Fonda's and Ball's children in the film, several went on to greater success, including Tim Matheson (billed here as Tim Matthieson), Morgan Brittany (billed here as Suzanne Cupito), and Tracy Nelson.

The actor who played the oldest of the Beardsley children, Tim Matheson, and the actress who played the oldest of the North children, future soap opera actress Jennifer Leak, married in real life, although they later divorced.