What Happened To Ann B. Davis From “The Brady Bunch”?
What Happened To Ann B. Davis From “The Brady Bunch”?
On May 31st 2014 Anne B Davis was a no-show for her hair appointment and the reason why was horrifying and B Davis’s talent bubbled to the surface early in life along with her twin sister Davis was the youngest of four siblings family and the search for it would remain a constant motivation throughout her life it’s hard to believe but acting wasn’t Davis’s first career choice she began University intending to become a doctor however she also came from a family who had a large interest in Show Business her older brother was a dancer in the National company of Oklahoma and it was at one of his performances that Davis decided to follow in his footsteps this would become the inspiration for her most famous character Davis was something of a late bloomer although she graduated in 1948 with a bachelor’s degree in theater six years passed before she was discovered at the age of 28 she was performing for free in a cabar coffee house when a casting agent suggested she audition for an upcoming show little did she know her career was about to take flight
Davis first made her mark with a recurring role on The Bob Cummings show she played Charmaine Schultz the title character’s assistant she won her way into the hearts of viewers with her funny and heartwarming portrayal of Schultz’s unrequited crush on her employer her time on The Bob Cummings show would yield four Emmy nominations for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series over the course of four years she went on to win twice back to back but her star was only starting to rise she was hired on The Bob Cummings show to play the foil to Cummings womanizing character Bob Collins but she often stole the show with her clever lines and became a beloved character in her own right
When the Bob Cummings show ended in 1959 she continued to appear on television as a guest star and in commercials and acted with several touring companies but during the 60s Davis’s appearances on television began to dwindle while she continued to appear in commercials most notably for Ford she didn’t pick up many roles on TV during this time she performed across America as a standup comedian then came a sitcom titled The Brady Bunch when it came to casting the creators of the show felt they needed a naturally funny actor to play the family’s housekeeper Alice that’s when Davis’s name came up but there was a problem Davis was already contractually committed to several weeks of standup shows in Seattle having decided that she would be an essential part of the cast The showrunners agreed to buy out her contract
Davis was a deeply committed actor who took every role seriously the son of the creator of The Brady Bunch and a lifelong friend of Davis’s Lloyd Schwarz commented that his father didn’t create Alice Davis did she created everything that the audience knew and loved about her character although a woman with a big heart Davis never knew what to do with children perhaps surprising given that she’s most famous for playing a character with parental tendencies she was never married and she never had kids and people often speculated about her lack of romantic partners while she never spoke about it publicly and rarely spoke about it in private her lifelong friend Lloyd Schwarz stated that there had been a romance with a married man that had ended badly this relationship seems to have tainted Davis’s view on love for the rest of her life
She once told the Chicago Sun Times by the time I started to get interested all the good ones were taken I’m still a little scared but I’m positive she was constantly fighting against her image in society and the image of women in general at one point she asked NBC photographers not to touch up her photos in the end they did anyway tweaking them to remove imperfections despite her affection for them she didn’t often spend time with her Brady Bunch co-stars offset however one year she planned an elaborate Halloween party for her TV family she may not have been the same as her character Alice but she still cared deeply about the children she worked with
As with any family there are always a few bumps along the road no one gets along perfectly and that rang true for Davis and her Brady Bunch co-star Robert Reed Reed had higher expectations for his career than what he got he believed he could have reached greater heights than the Brady Bunch and this resulted in him causing problems on set refusing to participate in scenes he thought he was above Davis found this especially frustrating she felt that Reed should have had more gratitude for his job after all it wouldn’t last forever in 1974 After Five Seasons ABC cancelled the Brady Bunch although it has since developed a strong and long-lasting fan base at the time ratings were dwindling the cast’s initial contracts were for 5 years and ABC didn’t want to involve themselves in the trouble of renegotiating them
The end of the show was difficult for Davis as her co-stars had become her family while she stayed in touch with them building a relationship with Maureen McCormick in particular they were no longer a constant in her life she ended up performing dinner theater and traveling across the country but it wasn’t enough to keep her satisfied at this time Davis was also exploring her faith she discovered a true passion for the church after her Hollywood Parish took on a new rector in her words I felt as though I’d been living in a castle but confined to one room now all the others are open in 1974 not long after the cancellation of the Brady Bunch she met Bishop William Frey and his wife Barbara
Davis was heading to Denver where Frey’s clergy was for her dinner theater show and she was advised to connect with the bishop whilst there this meeting caused a stunning ripple effect air with perfume Davis visited Frey at an afternoon service that he was performing and when he laid eyes on her a light bulb of recognition went off right away he knew her from the Bob Cummings show as such Davis wound up breaking bread with both Frey and his wife after that Davis would visit the couple whenever she had the time to spare and in the summer of 1975 barely a year after meeting them she went with their family on vacation it had only been a year since the Brady Bunch ended and Davis was well on her way to moving on
Later that year Davis made a fateful trip to visit Frey at his home at the time he was the bishop of Colorado and lived in a large home in downtown Denver with his wife and around 18 other religious followers it was with this household that Davis would find her peace what started as a prolonged visit quickly became something else after spending several months with the Freys Davis contacted her agent to tell him she wasn’t interested in working for the next year Davis turned her entire life around when she’d connected with the Frey family she sold her Los Angeles home and moved into their house in Denver it would seem that she finally found the family that she’d been looking for
While she removed herself from acting to prioritize her faith she always made an exception for the Brady Bunch in 1976 she participated in the first of many reunions The Brady Bunch hour was an hour-long variety show hosted by the Brady family but Davis’s New Life caused an issue she now lived in Denver and spent most of her time volunteering with Frey’s family when the cast was being put together for the new show she wasn’t even truly considered in the end she snagged a part as a guest star but there were still issues Davis appeared in every episode of The Brady Bunch hour despite her designation as a guest star being reunited with her Brady family once again thrilled her unfortunately that enthusiasm didn’t stretch to every cast member
The producers felt that the show needed a regular comedian so they cast Rip Taylor to play Brady’s neighbor and Alice’s love interest Rip Taylor was famous for his often runchy and off-color humor something that didn’t sit well with Davis she found his crude remarks and style of comedy distasteful as a result she didn’t even want to talk to Taylor unless the script demanded it Davis saw Taylor as crude Taylor saw Davis as a prude who needed to lighten up it was a divide that was impossible for them to cross fortunately they didn’t have to put up with each other for long The Brady Bunch hour only lasted for one season consisting of nine episodes while some people consider it a cult classic it’s more widely viewed as one of the worst shows in the history of television
Despite this The Brady Bunch continued to return and Davis continued her involvement The Brady Bunch had been off the air for almost 15 years when Davis returned to her role of Alice in A Very Brady Christmas the movie brought the majority of the cast together once again and led to the development of a brand new show the Bradies The Bradies featured more serious storylines allowing Davis to dig deeper and show she could do more than just comedy unfortunately it couldn’t compete against the more popular shows of the time and was cancelled after a month with all of its remaining episodes airing on the same day this was the last time that Davis played Alice Nelson with her Brady family
Although the Brady Bunch turned all of its actors into household names few were as well loved as Davis she experienced excellent health well into her 80s so the circumstances of her death were all the more sudden and unexpected at 88 years old she’d been carrying on with her daily routine when an unforeseen tragedy struck she was found in the bathroom of the home that she shared with the Frey family by Frey himself the night before Davis had suffered a serious fall hitting her head and she was now in a serious condition she never recovered and died from a subdural hematoma on June 1st 2014
Her talent inspired others it’s reported that her lovable character from the Bob Cummings show inspired another iconic character Marvel’s Pepper Potts in the Iron Man comics few people are lucky enough to create a legacy that will last long after their own life is over Davis is one of those people Baby Boomers and Generation Xers alike adored the Brady Bunch but more than that even today people are still watching reruns of the show
