Soon after its birth, the MTV network tried to branch out with \u201cRemote Control,\u201d a hipper than hip game show.<\/p>\n
Contestants were quizzed on media trivia including a category called, \u201cAlive or dead?\u201d The goal was to guess the current status of pop-culture icons.<\/p>\n
One day in 1988 the name \u201cAnn B. Davis\u201d popped up on the screen. Hitting the buzzer, a contestant shouted, \u201cDead!\u201d<\/p>\n
With a classic double take, Davis shouted, \u201cI am not!\u201d at the den television in the 26-room redstone house she shared with a dozen or more other Christians in Denver\u2019s Capitol Hill neighborhood.<\/p>\n
Wrong, said the host. The actress \u2014 who achieved media immortality as Alice, the wisecracking housekeeper on The Brady Bunch\u201d \u2014 was now a nun, living in Colorado.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not a nun,\u201d shouted Davis, with a dramatic pout.<\/p>\n
The confusion was understandable and Davis knew it. It was hard for outsiders to grasp the spiritual changes that caused this tough-willed and very private women to put her career on the back burner and, in 1976, join a commune of evangelical Episcopalians, led by Colorado Bishop William C. Frey and his wife, Barbara. She stayed with the household as it moved to an Anglican seminary in Western Pennsylvania steel country and, finally, to the outskirts of San Antonio, Texas, where she died last Sunday (June 1) at age 88.<\/p>\n
As the years passed, she opened up and shared her story with religious groups using the title, \u201cWhere I am, where I was and how I got from there to here.\u201d I came to know her while reporting for The Rocky Mountain News<\/em> and through a close friendship with one of the bishop\u2019s sons, when we attended the same parish. That meant spending time (an awkward journalistic situation, with guidelines cleared by editors) in the bishop\u2019s house and, of course, meeting the woman many called \u201cAnn B.\u201d<\/p>\n The actress stashed her two Emmys on the den shelves, where they served as bookends. Members of the multigenerational household shared most finances, cleaning, cooking and other duties. The woman millions knew as \u201cAlice,\u201d and before that as the spitfire \u201cSchultzy\u201d on The Bob Cummings Show, wasn\u2019t very good in the kitchen \u2014 tacos were her norm \u2014 and she admitted that she struggled with childcare.<\/p>\n Several times a week, Davis headed deeper into urban Denver to work at the St. Francis Center for the homeless, tucked away \u2014 anonymous \u2014 in the back doing laundry and sorting through clothing donations. <\/p>\n \u201cFor a single woman of indeterminate age, I have developed such a THING<\/em> for men\u2019s socks. You would not believe,\u201d she said, raising one eyebrow wickedly, while showing me what she called \u201cmy kingdom.\u201d Then she turned serious: \u201cActually, I know that what I do matters. Warm socks matter.\u201d<\/p>\n Davis explained that she was a semi-believer during most of her career. She had a Bible, but it stayed safely in its box. \u201cI wasn\u2019t struck by lightning. I didn\u2019t fall off my horse on the way to Damascus. I was going to church. \u2026 It\u2019s more like I suddenly started paying attention.\u201d <\/p>\n Then, as the years passed, the implications of her decision cut deeper.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew that God loved mankind, in general, a kind of swarming-all-over-the-earth kind of love,\u201d she once explained to me, while inspecting a new stack of men\u2019s jeans. \u201cBut it was new to realize that he loved me \u2014 Ann. Then I learned that God loves you \u2014 and you, and you, and you. So now I\u2019m beginning to worry.\u201d <\/p>\n It was one thing to accept that \u201cJesus loves me and Jesus loves you,\u201d she said. \u201cWell, Jesus also loves THEM<\/em> \u2014 whoever THEM<\/em> happens to be. \u2026 I was, like so many of us, quick to sign checks for the poor. But I needed to find a way to get closer to people who really needed help. \u2026 I don\u2019t remember Jesus saying, \u2018Feed the legally registered poor,\u2019 or \u2018Clothe the socially acceptable naked.\u2019 That\u2019s not in my Bible.\u201d<\/p>\n This really hit home, she explained, as she made pre-dawn drives into Denver\u2019s darker streets as she headed for the center. The realities outside her car windows had changed \u2014 forever.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I see someone asleep in a doorway, I now have to look to see if it\u2019s anyone I know,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s not what my life was like out in Hollywood.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Soon after its birth, the MTV network tried to branch out with \u201cRemote Control,\u201d a hipper than hip game show. Contestants were quizzed on media trivia including a category called, \u201cAlive or dead?\u201d The goal was to guess the current status of pop-culture icons. One day in 1988 the name \u201cAnn B. Davis\u201d popped up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,10,11,12,18,22,30],"tags":[1120,1119,177,1118],"class_list":["post-4295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglicanism","category-evangelicals","category-family-life","category-first-person","category-mass-media","category-popular-culture","category-young-people","tag-ann-b-davis","tag-bishop-bill-frey","tag-charismatics","tag-the-brady-bunch"],"yoast_head":"\n