Here’s What Happened to Ann B. Davis Before, During and After Playing Alice on ‘The Brady Bunch’

Some Background

She was born Ann Bradford Davis on May 3, 1926, in Schenectady, New York. The daughter of Marguerite and Cassius Miles Davis, Ann had an identical twin sister named Harriet, as well as older sister Elizabeth and older brother Evan. The family moved to Erie, Pennsylvania, when she was only 3. After graduating from Strong Vincent High School, she attended and graduated from Ann Arbor’s University of Michigan. While she was originally a pre-med major, after watching her brother’s performance in Oklahoma! she shifted over to drama and graduated in 1949 with a degree in drama and speech.

Show Business Family

“She came from a family who had large interests in show business,” explains pop culture historian Geoffrey Mark, the author of The Lucy Book: A Complete Guide to Her Five Decades on Television. “Her brother was a dancer who had been in the national company of Oklahoma! and she felt the pull into the business. She wasn’t planning on going into it; she was going to go into medicine, but she started getting parts locally in Texas. Then little things led to bigger things and now all of a sudden she’s doing different things, because she’s getting booked on projects. She’s doing summer stock, she’s becoming part of theater companies around the country. Eventually, in 1949, she gets to California and that finally brings her down to Hollywood. But she’s not easily booked, because she’s a character actress and character actors always have to fight harder to get noticed. If you’re not the star of the show, sometimes you’re not even the best friend of the star of the show; you’re in the background, playing small, interesting parts. The interesting thing, though, is that as hard as it is to get noticed, she did, because she really doesn’t start appearing as a nationwide presence until 1955. That means she didn’t break through until she was almost 30 years old.”

A Team Player

Ted Nichelson, co-author of the definitive book on The Brady Bunch Hour, Love to Love You, Bradys, adds, “When it comes to Ann, people have commented to me that she was on time, knew her lines and could play a scene with very little direction. She was a team player who worked well with directors, producers and fellow actors. Although she was funny on screen, she was actually a quiet person who preferred reading or needlepoint to pass the time.”

Finding Fame

When Ann finally gained attention for herself, she started securing some small parts. In 1953, she was a judge on the music series Jukebox Jury, where she and her fellow judges voted on whether or not a single was a “hit” or a “miss.” In 1955, she had an uncredited role in the film A Man Called Peter and, that same year, found herself cast on the sitcom The Bob Cummings Show, which bounced back and forth between NBC and CBS from 1955 to 1959. On the show, Bob Cummings played a womanizing photographer named Bob Collins; Rosemary DeCamp is Margaret MacDonald, Bob’s widowed sister; Dwayne Hickman (later to star on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis) is Margaret’s son, Chuck MadDonald; and Ann is Charmaine “Shultzy” Shultz, Bob’s secretary who is secretly in love with him and, on occasion, manages to sabotage his attempted relationships with other women.

‘The Bob Cummings Show’

“Bob Cummings was not unlike Ronald Reagan,” says Geoffrey. “He was a handsome, charming actor who was part of the Hollywood system who regularly booked parts. Sometimes they did very well and sometimes they didn’t. While they weren’t huge stars, they were recognizable names who sometimes were in great films and sometimes in lousy films. Their careers are very similar. When the studio system started to fall apart, George Burns, with Burns and Allen money, wanted to produce other shows the same way Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz wanted to produce other shows with their television money. And they came up with this sitcom.”

The Plot

“Today,” he continues, “it’s probably considered very corny and misogynistic, but he is playing a professional photographer who is the only source of income for his widowed sister and his girl-crazy teenage nephew. And his nephew is girl-crazy because Bob’s character is girl-crazy, because all he does all day long is take pictures of models in bathing suits. It is intimated, but never spoken, that he’s probably scoring with all of these models. So the humor came from Bob’s interaction with these gorgeous girls and his nephew wanting the same kind of interaction. They also needed someone to play his assistant and kind of a straight man for him, and Ann got the job. Except that she stole the show.”

Comedy Actress

“She was that funny. When she was on screen, you almost couldn’t look elsewhere. The camera loved her. Every time she opened her mouth, she was funny. She was like actress Mary Wickes, who could say a straight line and audiences howled. Ann was the same way. She knew how to say things funny and then if you gave her a funny thing to say, she was even funnier and she won Emmy Awards back to back for this show.”

She was also, according to Kimberly Potts, author of The Way We All Became The Brady Bunch: How the Canceled Sitcom Became the Beloved Pop Culture Icon We Are Still Talking About Today, the source for an interesting bit of pop culture history: “This is a bit of trivia that I love,” she laughs. “Her character on The Bob Cummings Show, Schultzy, became the inspiration for the Pepper Potts character in the Iron Man comics.” On the big screen, of course, Pepper was played by Gwyneth Paltrow.”

Finding Her Stride

Points out Geoffrey, “The Bob Cummings Show had a wonderful five-season run, but then the show was over and Ann started to play larger parts both in films and episodic television. She was also, again, a multiple Emmy Award winner and, I will tell you, she gave one of the most touching and charming Emmy Award speeches I’ve ever seen, because she’s so honestly touched and spoke from her heart. Maybe as an actress that’s why she was so loved by the people who worked with her and by the audience at home, because that’s who she was: very sincere, from the heart, and warmth just shone out of her. Again, like Mary Wickes. I really think Ann and Mary Wickes are very similar actresses.

A Natural Gift

“They were women who let their love lights shine while they were acting and just had this natural comedic gift to say the most mundane thing in a funny way, which is why they both worked so much in the mid-60s. Ann was booked again on a series called The John Forsythe Show. It didn’t run long, but she’s doing commercials, she’s doing theater all over the place. She’s doing what every actor who’s been successful does in between being on a regular TV series. And then she gets booked on The Brady Bunch, and that phenomenon is one of a kind.”

‘The Brady Bunch’

We will not insult your intelligence by describing the set-up for The Brady Bunch. Suffice to say that Ann was cast in the pivotal role of Alice Nelson, housekeeper to the Brady family. Her casting, according to Lloyd Schwartz, came in an interesting way. “When we cast The Brady Bunch, originally Joyce Bulifant was going to be Carol and then Florence Henderson became available,” he details. “Now when Joyce got the part of Carol, she’s more of a comedian than Florence Henderson. Florence does comedy well, but Joyce is just more instantly funny. So we had kind of a straighter character for the housekeeper. I can’t remember who was in place, but then when Florence was cast, Dad said, ‘You know, now we need a funnier Alice.’ I believe Ann was doing a nightclub act in Seattle or Alaska or someplace, and they kind of bought her out of it to come down and test for this. She got the part.”

Her Personality

“She was a very nice woman, but had nothing to do with children, so the idea of Alice being so beloved by the characters of the Brady Bunch was not reflective of her as a person,” he adds. “She was never married and everybody suspected that she was gay. She and I actually talked about it and she said, ‘No, I have lots of issues, but that’s not one of them.’ She told me she once had a relationship, I think with a married guy or something, and it ended badly. I don’t know that she ever had anything else after that. But that’s almost apocryphal.”

Caring Person

Elaborates Geoffrey, “Ann loved that they didn’t make Alice stupid and that they gave her a boyfriend so that she had a real social life of her own; that she was not just living for the family. They gave Alice a family, a boyfriend and a personal life. She wasn’t just there to crack jokes, they also allowed her to be a conscience for the children. She would often be the one to tell them the difference between right and wrong. You know, ‘You shouldn’t do that. Try this.’ That could have seemed perhaps a little preachy, except she does it with such warmth that the audience believes that Alice loves these children as if they were nieces and nephews to her. She conveyed that she really cares for them, because Ann really cared for the kids. That’s the kind of person she was that comes across and it informs the character. It makes her be loved.”

Loving Her Job

Although she wasn’t particularly interested in spending a lot of time with children in general, she did enjoy her time with the young cast members of the show. Details Kimberly, “In fact, because they were spending so much time together on set, she wanted it to be pleasant and for everyone to get along and have as much fun as possible. She was very appreciative of having the job and, because she did a lot of craftwork herself, embroidery and knitting and things like that, she kind of got them all into it, including the kids and, on an occasion or two, Robert Reed. They would do little needlepoint projects together, and there was a craft magazine that visited the set and did this big cover story on how the Bradys loved to do craftwork together.”

Special Connections

She points out that each of the adult cast members had a special connection with the youngsters: “Robert Reed did several things and took these elaborate trips with the kids. And Florence Henderson had children who were friends with the Brady kids, so she would have them over to her house. She had a swimming pool and the kids would spend a lot of time with the Brady kids. Ann B. didn’t do that. That wasn’t her jam to kind of hang out with them off set but, one year, she did plan and host a very elaborate Halloween party for them at her house. But in truth, she was not Alice. In fact, she didn’t cook at all, even though she wrote a cookbook, which is kind of funny. I do think she saw the Brady kids as sort of her family, which is part of the reason she never turned down any of the reunions. Even the variety show, which she didn’t have any special interest in doing. But, like Robert Reed, she wanted to be a part of it every time they all got back together. It had been a happy experience for her.”

Different Styles

Beyond being friends with her, Lloyd enjoyed working with Ann professionally as well. He recalls an episode of The Brady Bunch which featured guest star Imogene Coco, who had been the co-star of Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows. “I had worked with her on the show It’s About Time, and I was very close to her,” he says. “So I had these two women, really lions of our industry in terms of comedy and public awareness, in an episode. It was fascinating to see how they worked completely differently from each other. Imogene as a performer was much more like Robin Williams. She was a very shy person in real life, but on the stage she was just all over the place in the way that Robin was. Ann B. was kind of like Lucille Ball, who was extremely rehearsed. She had to have every beat down. They didn’t have many scenes together, but it was so funny to watch them, because their styles were so different.”

What’s in a (Last) Name?

When The Brady Bunch started, the Alice character didn’t have a last name. “Then,” Lloyd explains, “we did some episode where a mailman came to the door and he says, ‘I’ve got a letter for Alice.’ We realized you can’t have a mailman just say ‘Alice,’ so I said, ‘Nelson. Alice Nelson.’ That was because my dad had done The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, so Nelson was a semi-salute to Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. Nobody knows that; this is new for this. But that is how she got her last name. In fact, Alice’s boyfriend, Sam, got his last name in a similar way. It was in the butcher shop and, for some reason, we needed a last name there, so I looked at somebody who was putting down a hundred-dollar bill and I said, ‘Franklin. Sam Franklin.’ Many years later, for the first winner of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, the million-dollar question was what was Carol Brady’s maiden name? Two of the possible answers were Franklin and Nelson.”

Hitting the Stage

The Brady Bunch ended its run after five seasons in 1974. From there, Ann started doing dinner theater, which brought her to different places around the country. Remembers Lloyd, “My wife and I went to see Ann in this play in Shreveport, Louisiana, the name of which I can’t remember. The audience loved her and we talked afterward, and she asked what I thought of the play. I asked her, ‘Why are you doing this awful play?’ She said, ‘Well, nobody has written a play specifically for dinner theater.’ They would take all the plays from Broadway to dinner theater and cut them down a little bit and took out anything objectionable. But all the plays at that time, and this was the ’70s, were pretty risqué, which was not right for the dinner theater audience. So I said, ‘Well, I’ll write you a play,’ and I did and it was called The Nearlyweds. We had a reading at my apartment and I remember my wife playing a part, I actually read a part. It was booked at the Texas Grantee Dinner Theater in Dallas, Texas, and the rest is history, because that started my other career in theater. Ann played it all around the country and it was a big success, and it was the first play ever written for dinner theater. But Annie was kind of the inspiration for all of that for me. She played that for a while, had lots of bookings, and then she said to me, ‘I’m not going to do this anymore.’ She stopped working as an actress, except for when she returned for various Brady reunions.”

Return to the Stage

Elaborates Ted, “After The Brady Bunch ended, Ann eventually relocated to Colorado, where she became more active with her church and religious life. She periodically returned to acting on stage, television commercials and Brady Bunch reunions.”

“Her heart took her to a different place,” says Lloyd, “which is she became part of a religious community. Now a lot of people thought she had become a nun, but, no, she just lived in a religious community and did a lot of charity work with homeless people and things like that. She found a new fulfillment there. She was very fulfilled with that. She moved to San Antonio, which is where she lived out her life. When she did do something, like a commercial or a cameo appearance in The Brady Bunch Movie, she would always check in with me first. With the Brady Bunch film, she was concerned because it was PG-13, but I said, ‘No, this is fine.’ And this is what she would do. And she was loved in that.”

Very ‘Brady’ Reunions

As noted, one area Ann did not hesitate participating in when it came to acting were the various follow-ups to The Brady Bunch. The first, and one that could have easily turned her off to the rest, but didn’t, was 1977’s The Brady Bunch Hour, which had the premise that the family had become the hosts of their own TV variety show and we were witness to the show within a show. Ann was back with the original cast (with the exception of Eve Plumb, allowing Geri Reischl to step in, as she good-naturedly refers to it, as “Fake Jan”). “I’m a creative person, so I don’t know what the deals were for the reunions,” Lloyd admits. “Maybe money had something to do with it, but she never blinked about coming back for them. The truth about her is that she was very successful, but she said she just didn’t have that fire in the belly that a lot of actors need to pursue this. She was very fulfilled.”

Suggests Geoffrey, “I’ve never heard a bad word about her. I’ve never heard anyone say, ‘Gee, she was hard to work with.’ I have interviewed and known Sherwood and his son and daughter. I’ve met almost all of the Brady kids, I’m friends with Susan Olsen and I’ve never heard a bad word about Ann. All I’ve heard is that she was a joy to work with. I don’t know if there are that many people in show business I could say that about.”

Rip Taylor

One person she did not get along with was Rip Taylor, a co-star on The Brady Bunch Hour, who was cast as Alice’s boyfriend. “She didn’t like Rip,” concurs Geoffrey. “Rip and I were very close friends, and when he was performing, he was completely over the top. They used to say he could be very funny, but he would also be very to the point and he didn’t mince words nor did he censor himself around people. So he would make off-color jokes and do double-entendres and sometimes he used four-letter words, which she took exception to. Rip was being Rip and, for whatever reason, the two of them did not mix well. But they were both good people. I just think it was two people with completely different personalities. She did not tolerate his wild adult humor and he did not tolerate her … ‘squareness.’ Perhaps if they’d been on a show together week after week, they would have learned to tolerate each other and learn how to navigate the waters. But this was a short-lived show based on a terrible idea. It was good money for everybody involved, but creatively it was a terrible idea.”

Growing to Love Her Costars

Ted opines, “Rip Taylor and Ann did not get along very well, because they were complete opposite personalities and that situation was something she handled with professionalism. It’s true that she did not speak to Rip much when they shared a scene or a musical number, mostly because he talked incessantly, told dirty jokes and used foul language which did not amuse her. But she was never disrespectful towards him or said anything unkind. She dealt with him the best she knew how, by walking away and giving herself some personal space. Rip, on the other hand, was hurt by her lack of interest in him, but they still worked together and had a good time. Ann was occasionally frustrated with Robert Reed when he would refuse to say a line or appear in a scene, because it didn’t suit him as an actor, but they were cordial. Although she did not like children, and never had any of her own, she grew to love the Brady Bunch kids and enjoyed friendships with all of them for many years after the show ended.”

Robert Reed

“Like Florence,” says Kimberly, “occasionally Ann would get frustrated with Robert Reed and his attitude. She thought he should just put some of those complaints aside at times and do the work and be grateful that they had this great job for which they were well paid, and which was a pretty pleasant environment except when he was kind of throwing a fit about things.”

‘The Brady Brides’

The next spinoff of The Brady Bunch came in the early ’80s with the TV movie The Brady Girls Get Married, which was followed by the short-lived sitcom The Brady Brides. States Lloyd, “When we did The Brady Brides, Florence wasn’t going to be a regular, but for some reason we had Annie and she was just so good. The two of them were theater people and The Brady Brides was done in front of an audience and they both really come alive in front of an audience. So they both became regulars of that show.”

Going Dramatic

In 1988, the TV movie A Very Brady Christmas was produced, which was followed by the weekly series The Bradys. Details Geoffrey, “A Very Brady Christmas takes The Brady Bunch format out of the sitcom world into the soap opera world, and, lo and behold, Ann is able to do it as well as anybody else on the show, which shows you this is not just a lady who took her not-so-pretty looks and made jokes about it. This is a fine actress who could prove herself. And then when you see her on The Bradys, which was a completely dramatic series, she’s not just cracking wise. She’s acting about as well as anybody on the show is, and she is wonderful.”

Amazingly Talented

“Most funny people, if they’re talented, are also good actors,” he muses. “It’s very difficult to be funny and not have the intellect and talent to make lines mean something. You can hire all the people you want and sometimes they’re funny-looking or they have a funny voice or a catch phrase, but they’re reading off of cue cards and are getting hysterical canned laughter, but they’re not really funny. To make it work, you have to be a good actor, because you have to have a comedic point of view and Ann was able to do that in spades. You don’t first become a celebrity in your thirties and then stay one the rest of your life and go from series to series to movie to series and win awards and not be talented. She was an amazingly talented, intelligent, educated, nice lady who leaned on her talent and faith to get through life.”

Speed Racer

One fascinating aspect of Ann revealed by Kimberly in her book that many people may not be aware of is the fact that she loved sports cars. Says the author, “What’s funny is that she didn’t spend a lot of money on things. She had a house that she was very proud of in Hollywood when she was doing the show, but after that she made a lot of donations to help out charitable endeavors, but her whole life she always loved very fast little sports cars. She had a Porsche and, at the end of her life, I think the car that she was driving a little red Miata. That was the only thing that she kind of indulged herself on at all. She just loved to drive around fast in very cute little sports cars.”

Funny Moment

Laughs Lloyd, “She taught me how to drive stick! She had a Porsche and I bought a stick shift car, a 914 Porsche, but didn’t know how to drive it. So we went up to Dodgers Stadium, which had this wide open parking lot, and she started to teach me how to drive this car. Then the guard came over and was upset, until he realized it was Alice, and he just let us keeping going. That was kind of cool.”

Final Thoughts

Ann B. Davis died on June 1, 2014, at the age of 88, the same day she had taken a fall in her bathroom, resulting in a subdural hematoma. By all accounts, for someone her age she was in excellent health, so her death caught everyone by surprise. What wasn’t and isn’t surprising, is the love expressed by so many for her and what she gave the pop culture world in return.  “When we won the TV Land award in 2007,” says Lloyd, “it was fascinating when she came on stage. As much as the kids got applause, she received the most over everyone else, because everybody loved Alice.”

Icon

“In my own experience meeting her over the years, she was very kind and loving towards Brady Bunch fans,” says Ted, “and would gladly pose for pictures and sign autographs. I distinctly remember the TV Land Awards where she received a standing ovation that lasted several minutes; so long that she had to shush the audience so she could say a few words. Ann continues to be beloved my many people around the world and will forever have a place in our hearts.”

Legendary Career

Closes Geoffrey, “There are very few character people who get to help create and perform two beloved iconic television characters. While there are similarities between Schultzy on The Bob Cummings Show and Alice on The Brady Bunch, they were distinct people. And Baby Boomers loved them both. Generation Xers loved Alice and, just like Gilligan’s Island, there’s hardly anyone around today who has not seen an episode of The Brady Bunch or The Brady Bunch movies. It lives on and Alice lives on. Whereas The Bob Cummings Show is forgotten today, except by Baby Boomers, The Brady Bunch, and therefore Ann, has had and will continue to have a very long shelf life.”