Mary Anissa Jones (March 11, 1958 – August 28, 1976) was an American child actress known for her role as Buffy Davis on the CBS sitcom Family Affair, which ran from 1966 to 1971. She died from combined drug intoxication at the age of 18.[1]
Early life
Jones was born in Lafayette, Indiana. Her maternal grandparents were Lebanese, and Jones’ middle name means “Little Friend” in Arabic.
At the time of her birth, Jones’ father John Paul Jones was an engineering graduate and faculty board member at Purdue University, where her mother Mary Paula Jones (née Tweel) was a zoology student. Soon after the birth of Anissa’s brother John Paul Jones, Jr. (called “Paul” by the family), the family moved to Playa Del Rey, California, where John Paul, Sr. took a job in aerospace engineering and Anissa attended Paseo del Rey Elementary School, then Orville Wright Junior High School. [2]
Jones was eight when she was cast as Ava Elizabeth “Buffy” Patterson-Davis on the CBS sitcom Family Affair (1966). In the opening plotline, Buffy, her twin brother Jody (Johnny Whitaker), and older sister Cissy (Kathy Garver) are sent to live with their Uncle Bill (Brian Keith) and his valet Mr. French (Sebastian Cabot) a year after the children’s parents die in a car accident[3] (the DVD collection notes mistakenly state “plane accident”). By July 1969, the series had become a hit, and Jones became a popular child celebrity.[4]: 28
Shortly before noon on August 28, 1976, after partying in the beach town of Oceanside, California, with her new boyfriend, Allan “Butch” Koven,[5] and others, Jones was found dead in a bedroom of a house belonging to the father of a 14-year-old friend named Helen Hennessy.[4]: 28 During the final moments when Jones was alive, others at the party ranged in age from 12 to 22, as police later determined.[5] The coroner’s report listed Jones’ death as a drug overdose, later ruled accidental;[6] cocaine, PCP, Quaalude, and Seconal were found in her body during an autopsy toxicology examination. The police report also indicated a small vial of blue liquid next to Jones at the scene, which was never identified. The coroner who examined Jones reported she died from one of the most severe drug overdoses he had ever seen. Jones was 18 years old.[4]: 28
Jones was given a small, private service. She was cremated and her ashes were scattered over the Pacific Ocean.[6] She left $63,000 in cash and more than $100,000 in savings bonds when she died (equivalent to $776,204 today).
Six days after Jones’s death, Dr. Don Carlos Moshos was arrested and charged with illegally prescribing Seconal to Jones,[7] among other drugs-for-profit charges from a concurrent undercover criminal investigation. An envelope with Moshos’s business address was present at Jones’ scene of death, specifying a drug found in Anissa’s toxicology report (Seconal), its dosage (1.5 gr), quantity (50), and the recipient’s last name (Jones). Moshos was charged with 11 offenses;[8] while awaiting trial, Moshos died on December 27, 1976, four months after Jones.[9] Although the murder charges were dropped before his death, Moshos’s estate was sued by Jones’s surviving family for $400,000; in July 1979, the verdict found him 30% liable and Jones 70% responsible for her death, and the resulting judgment was reduced to $79,500 ($378,600 today).
Anissa’s father, John Paul Jones, died on March 7, 1974, age 44. On March 15, 1984, Jones’s brother, Paul, died of a drug overdose. He was 24 years old.[4] Jones’s mother, Mary Paula Jones, died in Detroit, Michigan of natural causes on January 14, 2012.
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Net Worth
The Estimated Net worth is $80K – USD $85k.
| Monthly Income/Salary (approx.) | $80K – $85k USD |
| Net Worth (approx.) | $4 million- $6 million USD |