It’s a Family Affair

What was the true meaning of the sitcom classic? Kathy Garver, aka Cissy, answers the questions that generations have pondered

by MATTHEW HAYS

For a couple of generations, fine after-school rerun viewing was epitomized by Family Affair, the 1966–71 show about dashing bachelor Bill Davis (Brian Keith) and his butler Mr. French (Sebastian Cabot). The two men were thrown into the family way when Davis’s sister and brother-in-law were killed in a plane crash. Soon after, the late couple’s three plucky, sweeter-than-pie children, Buffy (Anissa Jones), Jody (Johnnie Whitaker) and Cissy (Kathy Garver), landed on Davis’s doorstep, and the unlikely fivesome formed an unconventional family for five seasons of wacky, unexpected laughs.

To some, Family Affair stands as the epitome of bland, treacly, super-sweet and odious TV, the kind that helped to give the appliance the nickname “idiot box.” But on second glance, there was certainly something a bit more subversive about the program. After all, Davis was a bachelor at a time when every heterosexual was expected to marry; perhaps there were more than finely pressed suits lurking in Davis’s closet. And there was that nagging rumour that Mr. French earned his name from the manner in which he kissed the children.

Now that the first season of Family Affair is out on DVD, the Mirror landed this exclusive interview with one of the show’s original stars, Kathy Garver. Since the show ended, Garver has continued to hone her acting craft, studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. She continues to do voiceover work and is a producer of the forthcoming series TV Dinners (to air on Nick at Night), in which TV stars of yesteryear recall their on-set memories while also sharing their favourite recipes. Garver spoke from her L.A. home about various interpretations of Family Affair and about the fate of her fellow cast members.

Mirror: Obviously, there must be a lot of nostalgia while you’re watching this first season.

Kathy Garver: It’s fun to watch, and it’s interesting to see myself grow up. I have a 15-year-old son and I think he thought I’d never been young!

M: Something that strikes me as really interesting about the show now is that this was one of the first shows that allowed for an alternative family set-up.

KG: You’re right, people look at it and think it’s a very sweet show, but it did open up doors to alternative lifestyles. Not that we were a dysfunctional family, we were a very functional family, but the way you put it was good, we were an alternative family unit, living together and going through our trials and tribulations, but with a baseline of love.

M: It’s interesting, because back then they really couldn’t have a divorce, so the only way for an alternative family to exist was because someone had died. Both the Brady parents had been widowed, as Shirley Jones’s character was on The Partridge Family. They couldn’t have Mary Tyler Moore be divorced on her own show, that was still taboo. I look at Family Affair, and it was sweet, but also a breakthrough.

KG: I think so too. And also it was one of the first shows in colour. And Don Fedderson, the producer, was a good businessman and a man of good taste. Even when we were doing the shows, and I wanted to wear micro mini skirts, he said no, he wanted it to stick to classic styles.

Sissy names

M: We used to giggle that there was someone called “Cissy” on TV. What did you think when they asked you to play a character called Cissy?

KG: I wasn’t wild about it either. But later they explained in an episode that it was a shorter version of Catherine, so I didn’t mind quite as much. Being the strong independent woman I am, I was like, I don’t know, I change my own light bulbs! I wasn’t so into the Cissy name, but it was like, there was Buffy, then Jody, and then they needed another name that ended with y, so it became Cissy. They couldn’t have Buffy, Jody and Catherine.

M: Cissy! We could never get over that name!

KG: I know! I’ve gotten past it though.

M: I find this show even more interesting now, because here is a family that is run by, if you will, a same-sex couple: Brian Keith and Mr. French, played by Sebastian Cabot. In the opening episode, there’s a scene where Keith, this rugged bachelor, has this fastidious British butler fussing over him. Were the producers thinking something else that they couldn’t come out and say?

KG: I don’t think so. That would certainly be a connotation that people would read into it today, but instead of Mr. French being a nanny, he would be a manny. Don Fedderson was very conservative, and I don’t think it ever really entered his mind. It was such an accepted thing in England to have a manservant or a valet, someone who would take care of him at all times. So when the children show up it’s completely out of Mr. French’s domain. I don’t think they thought of it. Now, there could be that reading, that undercurrent. And it’s true that Brian Keith’s character never got married in five years.

Bathing between the lines

M: In the opening episode, there’s a scene where Brian Keith is in the bathtub, and Mr. French is going over his whole schedule with him, while he’s in the bathtub! Was this standard practice? Were the writers trying to tell us something?

KG: I don’t think so. No, I don’t think so. But it’s just as a great poem can be interpreted in many, many ways. And that’s what makes it a great and classic poem. The show can be interpreted on many different levels. And that’s why this show has withstood the test of time—it’s a classic that is open to many interpretations.

M: After the show ended, the actors suffered some hard times. Buffy died of an overdose. Jody also hit the bottle and pills and went through rehab. Brian Keith committed suicide after a lengthy illness. How did this affect you?

KG: They were lovely, warm, loving, talented people. So it was a big loss, just like it might be losing a family member. I was surprised at Brian, who was Catholic, at taking his own life, but you know what? I just did Entertainment Tonight, and I just told them, you can’t judge someone when they’re in pain and a lot of depression. Brian was always in charge of his own life and I think he wanted to be in charge of his own death.