Ann Bradford Davis: Life and Legacy of Alice Nelson from The Brady Bunch (1926–2014)

Ann Bradford Davis, stage and television actress, best-known for her role as Alice Nelson on The Brady Bunch (1969–74), was born on May 3, 1926, in Schenectady, New York, to Cassius Miles and Marguerite (Stott) Davis. Her father was an electrical engineer for General Electric, and her mother was a homemaker and suffragist who was active in community theater. Davis and her twin sister Harriet were the youngest of four children. Davis moved with her family to Erie, Pennsylvania, when she was three.

Davis’s first experiences with performing were putting on puppet shows with her twin sister. During World War II, Davis spent her summers working alongside her mother at an aluminum plant. In 1944 she graduated from Strong Vincent High School. Davis, inspired by the female doctor who delivered her and Harriet, wanted to become a physician. She studied pre-medicine at the University of Michigan but changed her major to speech and drama. After graduating in 1948, she became an apprentice at the Erie Playhouse. She then joined the Barn Theater, Peter Tewksbury’s new repertory theater in Porterville, California. Davis performed for three years in exchange for room and board. She subsequently worked in children’s theater in San Francisco and at the Wharf Theatre in Monterey.

Davis performed comedy at the Cabaret Concert Theater in Los Angeles. While performing there she got her breakthrough role as Charmaine “Schultzy” Schultz on the television series The Bob Cummings Show (known in syndication as Love That Bob), which debuted in 1955. Although the part of Schultzy was created with Jane Withers in mind, Davis won the role after auditioning for series lead Bob Cummings, producer George Burns, and director Fred de Cordova. She appeared in the situation comedy for all five of its seasons (1955–59). For her performance as Schultzy, a frustrated secretary who was hopelessly in love with Cummings’s photographer character, Davis was nominated for four Emmys, winning twice in 1958 and 1959. In 1960 she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Davis continued performing onstage; she toured in summer stock theater during The Bob Cummings Show’s summer hiatuses. She made her Broadway debut in 1960 by replacing Carol Burnett as Princess Winnifred in Once Upon a Mattress (1959–60). In 1965 Davis was cast as a series regular on The John Forsythe Show (1965), where she played gym teacher Miss Wilson. She also starred in the unsuccessful pilot for R.B. and Myrnalene (1964), created by Tewksbury. Other television appearances during this time included The Perry Como Show (1955–59), Wagon Train (1957–65), and The Keefe Brasselle Show (1963). Davis was an ardent supporter of the United Service Organizations (USO) and served on the USO National Council in the late 1960s and early 1970s. She performed for the U.S. Armed Forces in South Korea and Vietnam.

In 1969 television producer Sherwood Schwartz created The Brady Bunch, a situation comedy about a blended family with six children. He sought out Davis for the role of the family’s housekeeper, Alice Nelson. Schwartz was so intent on hiring Davis that he persuaded Paramount, the show’s production company, to buy out the last two weeks of her contract for a nightclub act in Seattle so that she could film the show in Los Angeles. Davis played the role for five seasons until the show was cancelled in 1974. Despite being “not good with kids,” she portrayed Alice as the Brady children’s trusted confidante. According to Schwartz, casting Davis was one of the most important decisions he made in creating The Brady Bunch. In the show’s memorable checkerboard-style opening title sequence, Davis received a special credit in the middle square, an acknowledgment of her status as the show’s most seasoned comedy performer. She relished her career as a character actress because, as she put it, “supporting players get the one-liners.” According to Davis, the show’s long afterlife in syndication allowed The Brady Bunch to “constantly renew our audience” as new generations of children tuned in to watch the show years after it ended production. After The Brady Bunch ended, she continued to play Alice in Brady Bunch-related sequels and specials, including the variety show The Brady Bunch Hour (1976–77), the television movie A Very Brady Christmas (1988), and the sequel series The Brady Brides (1981) and The Bradys (1990). Davis also had a cameo appearance as a truck driver (named Schultzy) in the 1995 film parody The Brady Bunch Movie. In 1994 she published Alice’s Brady Bunch Cookbook, which included recipes contributed by cast members along with anecdotes and trivia about the show.

Born and raised an Episcopalian, Davis was “born again” after she met Episcopal bishop William C. Frey and his wife Barbara while appearing in a summer stock production in Denver in 1974. In 1976 Davis sold her house in Los Angeles and joined the Freys in a multifamily religious commune— the Religious House—in Denver, Colorado. The actress lived in a single-family household with up to twenty people and shared a room with two other single women. She volunteered at a Denver homeless shelter, the St. Francis Center. While living in the commune, Davis reduced her appearances on screen and stage. Aside from performing in Brady Bunch revivals and making a handful of appearances on television shows and advertisements, she declined offers to return to acting full-time.

In 1990 Davis and the Freys moved from Denver to Ambridge, Pennsylvania That year Davis returned to the stage in dinner theater. From 1995 to 1996 she acted on Broadway in Crazy for You, a musical scored by George and Ira Gershwin. In 1996 Davis moved with the Freys to San Antonio. During her years in Texas, she was actively involved with St. Helena’s Episcopal Church in Boerne. She sang in the choir, became a lay eucharistic minister, and headlined a fundraising event to help the church raise money for a preschool. On June 1, 2014, Davis died at University Hospital in San Antonio after suffering a fall in the home she shared with the Freys. She was cremated and interred at Saint Helena’s Columbarium and Memorial Gardens in Boerne.