This Week in Television History: June 2014 PART I

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As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history, the more that fact and legend become intertwined. It's hard to say where the truth really lies.

June 5, 1954

Your Show of Shows final episode.

On this day in 1954, Your Show of Shows airs its last episode. The comic variety show featuring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca launched in 1950. Other featured performers were Carl Reiner, Howard Morris, Nanette Fabray, Bill Hayes, Judy Johnson, The Hamilton Trio and the soprano Marguerite Piazza. The show was created by Sylvester Weaver and directed by Max Liebman. Writers for the show included Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Danny Simon, Larry Gelbart, Mel Tolkin, and Carl Reiner. For three of its four years, it ranked as one of the Top 20 most highly rated shows. In 1952, the program won the Best Show Emmy Award.

To quote the Bicentennial Minute, "And that's the way it was".

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Tony Figueroa

Ann B. Davis

"I remember my first 'demographic report' on the 'Brady Bunch.' I was with a friend, who told her little girl, 'honey, you remember Shultzy?' The girl said, 'that's not Schultzy, that's Alice!' I knew that we were coming along....  Today, people with three-piece suits and briefcases suddenly become twelve when they're walking by me. That just breaks me up and I love it!" - Ann B. Davis

Ann B. Davis died today, from a subdural hematoma after a fall in her bathroom. Sources close to her say she was in excellent health for an 88-year old woman and her death was a complete shock.

Ann Bradford Davis was born in Schenectady, New York, the daughter of Marguerite (née Stott) and Cassius Miles Davis. She had an identical twin, Harriet, and an older brother Evans. She graduated from Strong Vincent High School, and is a graduate of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She originally enrolled as a pre-med major; however, she changed her mind and went into drama after seeing her older brother's performance of Oklahoma! Davis graduated in 1948 with a degree in drama and speech.

In the 1953–54 season, Davis appeared as a musical judge on ABC's Jukebox Jury.

Davis's first television success was as Charmaine "Schultzy" Schultz in the NBC sitcom The Bob Cummings Show. She auditioned for the role because her friend's boyfriend was a casting director and recommended her for the part. She won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series twice out of four nominations for this role. On February 9, 1960, Davis received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

For a period in the 1960s and 1970s, she was known for her appearances in television commercials for the Ford Motor Company, particularly for the mid-sized Ford Fairlane models. She also appeared on January 23, 1958, as a guest star on The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford. Davis was also featured in commercials for Minute Rice until the mid-1980s.

In the 1965–66 television season, she appeared as Miss Wilson, a physical education teacher at a private girls' academy in John Forsythe's NBC sitcom The John Forsythe Show.

From 1969 to 1974, Davis played housekeeper Alice Nelson in The Brady Bunch television series. 

Since then, she has returned to take part in various Brady BunchTV movies, including The Brady Girls .Get Married (1981) and A Very Brady Christmas (1988). 

She also reprised her role as Alice Nelson in two short-lived Brady Bunch spin-off television series: The Brady Brides (1981) and The Bradys (1990), both of which lasted only six episodes. 

She also made a cameo appearance as a truck driver named "Schultzy", a reference to her days on The Bob Cummings Show, in The Brady Bunch Movie in 1995. In 1994, Davis published a cookbook, Alice's Brady Bunch Cookbook, with Brady Bunch inspired recipes.The book also includes recipes from cast members.

In the early 1990s, Davis focused on theater. She performed in a production of Arsenic and Old Lace, and a world tour production of Crazy For You.

Davis never completely retired from acting; in her later years she was the celebrity spokeswoman in several Shake 'n Bake commercials, and later appeared in several disposable mop commercials for Swiffer. She has also appeared in a number of Brady Bunch reunion projects, most recently TV Land's The Brady Bunch 35th Anniversary Reunion Special: Still Brady After All These Years. On April 22, 2007, The Brady Bunch was awarded the TV Land Pop Culture Award on the 5th annual TV Land Awards. Davis and other cast members accepted the award, and she received a standing ovation.

In 1976, she sold her home in Los Angeles to move to Denver, Colorado, where she joined an Episcopal community led by Bishop William C. Frey. The community later relocated to Ambridge, Pennsylvania. Davis had long been a volunteer for the Episcopal church, working at the General Convention, attending services at churches around the country, and was not cloistered.

Ann B. Davis Quote: On leaving show business in 1976 for a year to join Bishop Frey's Episcopalian Commine: "I never heard a voice from the clouds saying get out of show business." - Interview with R Todd Nash The Tartan 1987

Good Night Ms. Davis
Thanks for giving us Alice

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa