Geri’s mother, Wanda, remembers Ann was sometimes on edge and short-tempered on occasion. Ann was sitting behind them in the studio audience during a taping when she overheard chatter in the crowd about the character of Alice and suddenly lashed out at the unsuspecting fans. “Somebody’s mother nearby us said she would have loved to have been an actress, but would rather do something like Ann does,” Wanda Reischl explains.

“Boy, it made Ann mad when she heard it. I didn’t see anything wrong with what was said, she just meant she didn’t want to be the big star, you know, to have to have the lines and everything. She knew that Ann was sitting back there. But Ann told her off, ‘I want you to know it takes a lot more acting than you think it does to play my part. You couldn’t play it!’ The mother was really embarrassed. Whatever was said wasn’t meant to be anything bad about Ann. That person was just saying that Alice would be the type of part they would like to play.”

Rip Taylor explains that when he first met Ann B. Davis she barely said two words to him, and later rarely acknowledged his presence. He found her demeanor towards him not only unjustified and inexplicable, but also personally insulting. “We did the scenes... ‘Cut’... and she’d walk. You couldn’t get close to this woman no matter how hard you tried, that’s all because she was looking for God, probably. I hope she’s found him by now. I think she was very rude for no reason.

Excerpt from: Love to Love You Bradys: The Bizarre Story of the Brady Bunch Variety Hour