HarryCarter Posted June 1, 2014 Report Share Posted June 1, 2014 Ann B. Davis as died at the age of 88. (CNN) -- Ann B. Davis, known for her role as housekeeper Alice Nelson on "The Brady Bunch," diedSunday, close friend Bishop William Frey said. She was 88. According to Frey, Davis fell and hit her head Saturday morning in her bathroom. She suffered a subdural hematoma and never regained consciousness. Appearing in her trademark light blue maid's uniform with a white apron, Alice anchored "The Brady Bunch" with her cheerful attitude and witty one-liners. In a 2004 interview with the Archive of American Television, Davis described how she created the character. "I made up a background story. I did have a twin sister, so I used that as a basis. ... I cared very much about this family. It was my family. It was close to my family as Alice would ever get. I would have died for any single one of them at any point," she said. "You know, they wrote me such gorgeous things to do, as the intermediary between the kids and the adults, and between the boys and the girls. And they gave me funny things to do." In real life, Davis said she wasn't quite as handy around the house as her beloved character. "I basically don't do that well with children, although my sister says I'm a great aunt," she told People, adding that she hates to cook. "When it's my turn in the house," she told the magazine, "we just eat out." Davis had planned to study medicine at the University of Michigan but caught the acting bug from her brother, who was a dancer in the national company of "Oklahoma," according to a biography of the actress on IMDb.com. Her big break in Hollywood came when she won the role of Charmaine "Schultzy" Schultz, the secretary on the 1950s sitcom "The Bob Cummings Show," IMDb said. But to generations of American TV viewers, she was best known as Alice. Frey, who knew Davis for 38 years, said fans often told her that they felt like they'd been raised by the character of Alice. "Look how well you turned out," she would reply. "All of wish we had an Alice. I wish I had an Alice," Davis told People magazine in 1992. "What you see on 'The Brady Bunch' was who she was," Frey said. "She was a very faithful Christian person." Davis mostly retired from show business in the late 1970s to settle down in an Episcopal community. "I'm convinced we all have a God-shaped space in us, and until we fill that space with God, we'll never know what it is to be whole," she told People. Even as she turned her focus more toward religion, she appeared in commercials and several stage productions. In the 1995 "The Brady Bunch" movie, she played a truck driver, persuading a runaway Jan to return home. She told the Archive of American Television that she loved working on the small screen. "The neatest thing about television is that they write for you. ... They find out what you can do, what you do best, how it works, and how they can use you. And so from there on, it's wonderful. Because it's different. It's not like playing the same play forever and ever and ever," she said. "But the character's still the same. It just gets better and more developed. So that's great fun." http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/01/showbiz/ann-b-davis-dies/?sr=google_news Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjw Posted June 1, 2014 Report Share Posted June 1, 2014 I know the "younger generation" thinks of this lady as Alice, but that was "after my time." I primarily know her as the man-starved Schultzy on the Bob Cummings show... Loved her in that! Years later I heard that Cummings originally wanted Alfred Hitchcock's bespeckled daughter Pat for the role. The two had become pals a decade earlier when Cummings starred in Hitchcock's film "Saboteur." But Pat discovered she was pregnant just as work got underway on the TV series, so she did not even have a chance to test for the part! Sorry to hear the news about Ms. Davis! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brock Posted June 1, 2014 Report Share Posted June 1, 2014 Very sad news -- and what a terrible way to go. R.I.P. Ann. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreddieMertz Posted June 2, 2014 Report Share Posted June 2, 2014 As soon as somebody told me that 'Alice' died, for some reason I thought they meant Linda Lavin-and when they told me it was Ann I was devastated. What a shame especially how it happened Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Posted June 2, 2014 Report Share Posted June 2, 2014 bro Very sad news -- and what a terrible way to go. R.I.P. Ann. Actually, maybe not. Assuming he all have to go sometime (unless you know something we dun't), I'd rather go quickly and not linger with some long illness. And at age 88, the cruel facts are that most people are afflicted with some sort of age-related malady. Like Tom (tjw), I never got into Brady Bunch, but she brought a lot of energy to "The Bob Cummings Show", so much so, she earned the respect of the Emmy people, nominating for Best Supporting Actress in each of the show's 4 seasons and won for the last two, beating out Vivian Vance in 1958 (for the calendar year 1957); and Verna Felton for December Bride in 1959. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjw Posted June 2, 2014 Report Share Posted June 2, 2014 Actually, maybe not. Assuming he all have to go sometime (unless you know something we dun't), I'd rather go quickly and not linger with some long illness. And at age 88, the cruel facts are that most people are afflicted with some sort of age-related malady. I agree... It is much better to go out with the blink of an eye than with a long, drawn-out illness! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leenorman Posted June 2, 2014 Report Share Posted June 2, 2014 I read Ann's obit - [long-time fan of Bob Cummings show - she was GREAT
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