Biography

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 a drug overdose, five years after the show ended. Mary Anissa Jones was born in West Lafayette, Indiana, and was raised in Charleston, West Virginia, until the age of five. Her maternal grandparents were Lebanese. 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 1960 birth of Anissa's brother John Paul Jones Jr., the family moved to Playa Del Rey, California, where John Paul Sr. took a job in aerospace engineering and Jones attended Paseo del Rey Elementary School and then Orville Wright Junior High School. Jones' parents were divorced before her acting career began in 1965.