Ann B. Davis was an actress best known for the role of Alice, the good-natured live-in housekeeper she played on the popular 1970s TV comedy The Brady Bunch.
Born in Schenectady, New York, Davis grew up primarily in Erie, Pennsylvania. She earned a degree in theater from the University of Michigan and began her career in the theater before eventually moving to Los Angeles to pursue film and television work.
Ann B. Davis was an actress best known for the role of Alice, the good-natured live-in housekeeper she played on the popular 1970s TV comedy The Brady Bunch.
Born in Schenectady, New York, Davis grew up primarily in Erie, Pennsylvania. She earned a degree in theater from the University of Michigan and began her career in the theater before eventually moving to Los Angeles to pursue film and television work.
While performing in a revue at an L.A. coffee house, she was noticed by a casting director who helped her to win the role of Charmaine "Schultzy" Schultz, the perenially lovelorn secretary to a playboy Hollywood photographer on The Bob Cummings Show. Davis received four Emmy Award nominations for the role and won twice — in 1958 and 1959.
She went on to appear in The John Forsythe Show and The Keefe Brasselle Show and in the feature film Lover Come Back, starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson, before landing the role of Alice.
After The Brady Bunch completed its 1969-74 run, Davis reprised the role in several spinoff productions, including The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, The Brady Girls Get Married and A Very Brady Christmas. She also had a cameo in The Brady Bunch Movie.
Davis died June 1, 2014, in San Antonio, Texas. She was 88.