The Associated Press
Ann B. Davis, 88, who became the country’s favorite and most famous housekeeper as the devoted Alice Nelson of “The Brady Bunch,” died Sunday at a San Antonio hospital.
Bexar County, Texas, medical examiner’s investigator Sara Horne said Miss Davis died Sunday morning at University Hospital. Horne said no cause of death was available and that an autopsy was planned Monday.
Bill Frey, a retired bishop and a longtime friend of Miss Davis, said she suffered a fall Saturday at her San Antonio home and never recovered. Frey said Miss Davis had lived with him and his wife, Barbara, since 1976.
More than a decade before scoring as the Bradys’ loyal Alice, Miss Davis was the razor-tongued secretary on another stalwart TV sitcom, “The Bob Cummings Show,” which brought her two Emmys.
Over the years, she also appeared on Broadway and in occasional movies.
Producer Sherwood Schwartz’s “The Brady Bunch” debuted in 1969 and aired for five years. But like Schwartz’s other hit, “Gilligan’s Island,” it has lived on in reruns and sequels.
In her blue and white maid’s uniform, Miss Davis’ character was constantly cleaning up messes large and small, and she was a mainstay of stability for the family.
Miss Davis’ face occupied the center square during the show’s opening credits.
She was born Ann Bradford Davis in 1926, in Schenectady, N.Y., and grew up in Erie, Pa.
She said she took to using her middle initial because “just plain Ann Davis goes by pretty fast.”
Miss Davis never married, saying she never found a man who was more interesting than your career.
“By the time I started to get interested [in finding someone],” she told the Chicago Sun-Times, “all the good ones were taken.”