Ann B. Davis dies: Friends, fans mourn Alice from ‘Brady Bunch’

The death of Ann B. Davis, the actress who played the beloved housekeeper Alice on “The Brady Brunch,” prompted an outpouring of mourning Sunday from friends and fans.

“We have been getting calls all day from people about her death,” close friend and roommate Bishop William Frey told the Los Angeles Times. “She will be truly missed. She was one of a kind.”

Davis, 88, lived in San Antonio with the Frey family and had been in relatively good health for her age, until she fell in her bathroom Saturday, Frey said. She suffered a major head injury from which she did not recover, he said.

Since 1976, Davis lived with an Episcopal community, first in Denver, then in western Pennsylvania, before settling in the Texas hill country near San Antonio. She worked in a homeless shelter in Denver and devoted herself to prayer and Bible study but took occasional acting roles through the years.

“I never heard a large voice from above saying, ‘Get out of show business, Ann,’” she told Newsday in 1995. “I just found that my priorities had changed and I knew that I needed some space.”

Lately, Frey said, “the church was her life,” though Davis also made time for her fans.

“She still got a lot of fan mail from all around the world and would respond to all of it religiously,” Frey said. “She was a wonderful, smart, funny woman. She was Alice.”

On Sunday, fans began tweeting their favorite Alice-isms, episodes and other memories: the potato sack race, “pork chops and applesauce!” and more.

“Brady Bunch” co-star Florence Henderson tweeted: “I’m so shocked & saddened to learn my dear friend & colleague Ann B Davis died today.I spoke with her a few months ago & she was doing great.”

Added fan @DrGMLaTulippe: “#RIP Ann B. Davis. Hope you find Sam the Butcher at the Big Meat Market in the Sky.”

Times staff writer Jevon Phillips contributed to this report.