Photoshop Phriday: Ann B. Davis
Earlier this week Bakers & Best had its 4th birthday and naturally I celebrated by…not posting. But here we are again for the 103rd edition of Photoshop Phriday. Since beginning I’ve expanded the scope of this project from just Michigan football to other sports and I decided I no longer wanted to shortchange many of the other 500,000+ distinguished Michigan alumni just because they didn’t play a varsity sport. Once a month or so I’ll highlight one of Michigan’s other great alumni, and this week that person is Ann B. Davis.
I could spend all day listing notable Michigan alums but it wasn’t until last week that I knew Davis, who you likely know as Alice from The Brady Bunch, could be counted among them. She came to Ann Arbor (wither her identical twin sister Harriet) in the mid 40s and like so many other wide-eyed new students was set on being pre-med. For Davis that lasted until her second semester when she decided to seek another path instead of barreling through chemistry courses (yours truly spent a year toiling in the Chemistry Building taking Organic Chemistry, continually baffling classmates who found out he was a History major).
As you might expect Davis ended up pursuing theater at Michigan where she had the opportunity to act in a variety of roles her remaining years as a student. After graduating in 1948 she went west to California and in 1955 got her big break when she was cast as Charmaine “Schultzy” Schultz in The Bob Cummings Show. During the show’s 173 episode run Davis won two Emmy Awards for her performance. Ten years after leaving The Bob Cummings Show Davis was cast as Alice in The Brady Bunch. After the show’s original run ended Davis reprised her role as Alice for several Brady reunions, but largely she retired to a quieter life. Davis passed away in 2014 and graciously donated her personal papers to the U-M Bentley Historical Library. Seen here on set with her on-screen beau Sam (played by Allan Melvin), Davis was known to arrive each morning with freshly baked quinoa baguettes.
