Anissa Jones, and the cast of "Family Affair"
I feel like the Marshall Field of Death. "Give the lady what she wants." Here's the minimal information I've been able to obtain, by request, about Senorita Anissa. It's sorta unusual just how much interest there is in this chick.
Updated January 2000 - courtesy of Findadeath.com extraordinaire Brian Keith O'Hara, who filled me in on many missing details of Anissa's life. Thank you Brian, I am in awe of your knowledge, and am honored that you would share it with me. Just so you know, friends and family referred to her "ANEESA" - not AnIssa, and certainly not BUFFY. It disgusted me how many people in the industry called her BUFFY in the E special.
Here's the scoop:
Mary Anissa Jones, from Playa Del Rey, CA, was a regular on the hit television show "Family Affair," during its entire run from 1966 to 1971. She played orphaned twin Buffy, of "Buffy and Jody" fame. Johnnie Whitaker played Jody, and Mrs. Beasley played herself. Did that doll disturb anyone else? Anyway, after the show was cancelled, she was only 13, and decided she wanted out of the industry, to be more like "normal" kids. Her turbulent at best relationship with her stage mother and divorced father made her life anything but normal. I have to say that this story is much more complicated than I had known. She lived a life more insane than most screwed up adults I know.
Her mother lived at 100 Rees Street, in Playa Del Rey. Here's another view of the house. She attended both Orville Wright Junior High School and Westchester High School.
According to the E special, she was on the outs with her mother, and she and her brother Paul moved in with her father in this apartment. Her father died, Paul moved back in with mom, but Anissa moved in with a friend. Her mom freaked and reported her as runaway, Anissa was arrested and put in juvenile detention for a few months. How screwed up is that? I think this is where she learned that the world could and would shit on you, from great heights.
After being released from prison in 1975, Anissa had little of her money left, since her mother had control of it, and the cost of living on the beach was hugely expensive, and her mother's job was seeing Anissa through her work, thus unable to make a career for herself. Anissa swallowed her pride, and took up a job at the Winchell's Donut Shop, on Manchester Blvd.
On her 18th birthday, she received her $70,000 trust fund from her Family Affair earnings, and she and her brother got an apartment together. She started seeing a guy named Allan Kovan, who was way into heavy drugs, and Anissa and her brother Paul got way into heavy drugs themselves.
On August 28th, 1976, Anissa was staying with her friend Helen at 2312 Littler Lane, in Oceanside, California. Here's another view of the house. Much thanks to ANNEABE (my hero) for getting those pictures. She downed a mixture of drugs including Barbiturates, Phencyclidine and Cocaine. Obviously she had friends in high places. Shortly thereafter, she "rolled stone-dead onto the floor beside her bed." Her boyfriend says in the E thing, that he checked on her in the morning, and she seemed fine. An hour later, others checked and found her dead. Boyfriend freaked, put some clothes on her, and called the paramedics. It was too late. The coroner supposedly said that he had never seen an overdose so massive.
This photograph was supposedly taken the day before she died. Thanks again, Brian.
There was no funeral. According to my pal Kim, she was taken to Eternal Hills Memorial Park, in Oceanside, and cremated. They scattered her ashes at sea, near her home.
Her brother Paul wrote this memorial in concrete, in front of the garage. Interestingly, the dates are wrong. Even more tragically, Paul died of an overdose, 8 years later. How very very sad.
Other Dead "Family Affair" actors include Sebastian Cabot and Brian Keith.
Sebastian Cabot played the gay butler, Mr. French. He died from a stroke at his home, near Victoria, British Columbia on August 22, 1977. He was 59. He is buried in Westwood Memorial Park.
Brian Keith, aka "Unko Beeyo," or "the grump," as he was known on the show, blew his brains out in his Malibu Colony home, in June of 1997. He had cancer, and his daughter took her own life just a couple of months earlier, in the same fashion. God, that is horrible.
Thank you Steve Goldstein of "Beneath Los Angeles" for providing those photographs.
HIS funeral was held at "Our Lady of Malibu Catholic Church," on June 29th, and was attended by Garver and Whitaker. His ashes are interred at Westwood Memorial park. Sorry, I have no pictures of these places. Next trip.
Trivia: Supposedly, Susan Olsen (Cindy Brady) mimicked the Buffy look, when she auditioned for her role in "The Brady Bunch."
More Trivia: Anissa, along with Jimmy Durante (doesn't that vision make your skin crawl?) presented the Monkees with an Emmy for Best Comedy Series, in 1967. I just saw the clip. It is as awful as it sounds. Jimmy Durante rubbing his phallic nose against poor Anissa. She must have wanted to scream.
Still More: Brian was once related to Peg Entwistle, the girl that jumped from the Hollywood sign.
Even more: Johnny Whitaker, the actor that played her twin brother Jody, was actually 2 years younger than Anissa.
