on
The Bob Cummings Show, 1958 . Back (L-R):
Christopher Knight (Peter),
Barry Williams (Greg), Ann B. Davis (Alice). Second row (L-R):
Eve Plumb (Jan),
Florence Henderson (Carol),
Robert Reed (Mike),
Maureen McCormick (Marcia). Front (L-R):
Susan Olsen (Cindy),
Mike Lookinland (Bobby). In the 1953–1954 season, Davis appeared as a musical judge on ABC's
Jukebox Jury. Davis's first television success was as Charmaine "Schultzy" Schultz in
The Bob Cummings Show, 1955–1959. She auditioned for the role because her friend's boyfriend was a casting director and recommended her for the part. In this period, Davis also focused on theater. As early as 1958, she appeared in a national touring company of the
Thornton Wilder play
The Matchmaker, co-starring with her
Bob Cummings Show castmate,
Lyle Talbot, who played Bob's Air Force buddy, and on June 27, 1960 she replaced
Carol Burnett in the starring role of Princess Winnifred in the
Broadway production of the musical
Once Upon a Mattress. Davis only played the role for a week before the show closed on July 2. In May 1964, she appeared in the stage production of
Bus Stop at the Yonkers Playhouse.
Jayne Mansfield played the lead character Cherie, while Davis played the character of Grace, owner of the diner. The play had a three-week engagement that ended on June 14. In the 1965–1966 television season, Davis appeared as Miss Wilson, a
physical education teacher at a private girls' academy in
John Forsythe's single-season NBC sitcom,
The John Forsythe Show. For a period in the 1960s and 1970s, Davis was known for her appearances in
television commercials for the
Ford Motor Company, particularly for the midsized
Ford Fairlane models. Davis was also featured in commercials for
Minute Rice in Canada until the mid-1980s. During this period, she also performed as a comedian; before
Sherwood Schwartz could cast her in
The Brady Bunch,
Paramount Studios had to buy her out of a multiweek booking in Seattle. From 1969 to 1974, Davis played housekeeper Alice Nelson in
The Brady Bunch television series. She later returned to take part in various
Brady Bunch television 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), which ran for 10 episodes, and
The Bradys (1990), 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 returned to theater. She performed in a production of
Arsenic and Old Lace, and both the Broadway production and a world tour 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 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 fifth annual
TV Land Awards. Davis and other cast members accepted the award, and she received a standing ovation. ==Personal life==