Family Affair was one of the most beloved sitcoms on TV all the way through the 60s and 70s, but Kathy Garver recalls the eerie moment when her co-star Anissa Jones' mother asked her to help her daughter months before her death.
Jones was only six years old when she began her acting career in commercials before being cast in CBS's Family Affair when she was eight. She played the title role of Buffy Davis, one of the orphaned children Brian Keith's leading character tries to raise after his on-screen brother's death.
The sitcom was a hit that ran for five seasons and produced 138 episodes during its run. Jones was 12 when the sitcom came to an end in 1971 and would die years later in 1976 at the age of 18.
In an exclusive interview with Entertainment Weekly, Garver looks back at working with Jones and the plea her mother made one day. On screen, Garver played Jones' on-screen sister, 15-year-old Cissy, and remembers having attended her co-star's 18th birthday.
“I remember going to her 18th birthday party, and her mom coming up to me and saying, ‘I wish you’d spend more time with Anissa because she’s in the wrong crowd,’” recalled Garver.
“I said that I’d love to. I was leaving the next day to go back east to do the musical My Fair Lady. I’d be gone for two months, but as soon as I got back, absolutely. We were very close. She spent the night at my house a couple times.”
Unknown to her, it would be one of the last times she would ever see Jones, and her mother's plea would lead to heartache. Jones' birthday and the conversation occurred in March, with the actor dying a few months later in August of a drug overdose. According to reports, she was found dead after a night of partying with her boyfriend and others in a beachside home belonging to a friend's father.
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Authorities determined the parties' guests ranged from 12 to 22 years old, and Jones' death was ruled an accident. An investigation that had already begun before her death led authorities to arrest Dr. Don Carlos Moshos for illegally prescribing Seconal, a barbiturate, to the actor. Moshos was charged with 11 offenses, with his murder charges dropped before his death.
“These drugs kill people,” Garver said. “It’s just so sad. We’ve lost so many of the child stars because of the drugs, and there’s no one there [to support them].”
The Family Affair actor explains the "emotional and psychological" impact that stardom at a young age causes. Having herself begun acting at seven years old, she explains that amid young actors trying to find their identity and being pushed from the spotlight, they are thrust "into a ‘Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing? [scenario ,]."
“They go to the drugs and the groups that are happy to have them be there," she adds. Jones' brother Paul would also die from a drug overdose at the age of 24 in 1984.
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