ABC: She's Anissa, she's adorable and she misses her friend "French"

Her full name is Mary Anissa Jones. Anissa (pronounced Ah-NEES-ah) means "little friend" in Lebanese, the native tongue of her maternal grandparents. Last time she was measured, she was 43 inches tall and weighed 43 pounds--a statistic that fascinates her (she thinks it sounds "lucky"). Her neat, upturned nose is sprinkled with a confetti of tiny beige freckles; her hair is blonde, parted fore and aft and usually plaited in two brief outjutting braids; her eyes--now gray, now green, now hazel--seem to pick up the color she happens to be wearing.

Not too long ago, her diction was somewhat muffled because she had just shed her two upper central incisors. Anissa promptly turned this phenomenon of nature to fiscal advantage. Indicating one vacancy, she says, "For this tooth, I got a quarter, a dime and a nickel. For the other tooth, I got only a quarter and a dime." A thoughtful silence ensues, then a rueful addendum: "I still don't know why I didn't get a nickel for IT, too."

She's 8 years old (going on 9), still looks only 5 or 6, and has the timeless wizardry of a leprechaun. A generation ago, Charles Laughton said of child-star Margaret O'Brien, "if she had lived in the Middle Ages, she would have been burned at the stake as a witch!" Today's little Miss Jones has the same kind of enchantment, the same ability to cast a spell and imbue everything she does with glowing magic.

Anissa was born on March 11, 1958, in West Lafayette, Indiana, the daughter of Dr. J. P. Jones, who was on the faculty of Purdue University at the time, and the former Miss Paula Tweel of Charleston, West Virginia. Anissa interrupted her mother's study toward a master's degree in zoology and study was further suspended by the arrival of Anissa's brother Paul in July, 1959.

Presently, Anissa is one of the stars of the Don Fedderson production, Family Affair, on CBS- TV. Before the camera, she has held her own nicely against such thespic stalwarts as Brian Keith and Sebastian Cabot--and now John Williams, who joined the cast after Cabot became ill. In Hollywood, Keith is known as "an actor's actor," meaning he has the talent to do brilliantly everything required of an actor up to and including "playing" the bagpipe. Cabot had long been famous for a voice as flexible and persuasive as a velvet rope, a pair of eyes that speak seven languages flawlessly, and a beard so versatile it can run the emotional gamut from Mephisto to Santa Claus. But Anissa was undaunted, from the very start of the series.

She says of her initial encounter with Mr. Cabot, who played French, the butler and man of many parts, until mid-January of this year: "Did you see the pilot of Family Affair? Did you see me BITE Mr. French right on the leg? I REALLY bit him--but when he pretended to be mad, he was only pretending. I HAD to bite him. It was in the script, you know."

In spite of that first skirmish--perhaps even because of it--Anissa and Sebastian became best friends. When he was hospitalized at the UCLA Medical Center this winter, because of ulcers, his devoted little pal and admirer was terribly upset. She constantly sent him loving notes, along with bright arrangements of flowers to wish him well.

Now, of course, Anissa (as Buffy) and Johnnie Whitaker (as her twin brother Jody) have a new butler-buddy on Family Affair, "French's brother," as portrayed by that sterling actor and fine gentleman, John Williams. Anissa and John took to each other immediately. Though there's no doubt our little heroine misses her bearded playmate very much, remembering such off-duty outings as the day at the zoo pictured on the opening pages of our story, she's tactfully quiet about such emotions and memories while on the set working enthusiastically.

Not quite 9 years old and already a seasoned trouper, she talks almost casually about her career and how it all began. "Well," she'll tell you, "I was going to dancing school--I've taken lessons since I was only four--and our class was asked to dance for Mr. Art Linkletter's program."

She avoids further elucidation of l'affaire Linkletter, because she had been required to turn a cartwheel. She fell over on her first attempt. Setting her 4-year-old jaw, she simply returned to the starting position and repeated the stunt--successfully. The audience howled with delighted laughter, but Anissa cried all the way home. She failed to find the situation funny; she had only done what any dedicated ballerina/acrobat/horsewoman should do: try it over again.

In February, 1964, two years after the disastrous cartwheel incident--but let Anissa tell it: "My mother has a girl friend, and this girl friend has a little girl. She has been doing commercials--on television, see--for a long time. She's older than me. Anyhow, this girl's mother told my mother that her agent was looking for a child who was 6 years old but who looked younger than that.

"I was almost six, but everybody thought I looked very young, so I got the job. I learned how to do commercials, too. I guess I did about twenty." (She holds up a closed fist, then opens it four times. Twenty, obviously.)

"Then, last spring, when I was 8, Mr. Fedderson needed a girl who looked only 6. I had an interview with him, then I had to make a screen test--that was easy, I just did what I was told-- and then we started the television series. I like it so well that I never want to go home. I just want to stay and watch, even if I don't have anything more to do that day."

One reason she is devoted to duty may be that she is the darling of the set, as well as an authentic trouper. Asked how long it takes to memorize her script for the next day's shooting, she holds up a closed fist again, then opens it twice. Ten minutes. "It's easy," she says.

Can she read her own script?

"I can read...except for a very big word we sometimes have. Like the word philosopher. Do you know what a philosopher is? Well...it's a man that thinks a lot, but doesn't do anything much about it."

Time for luncheon. Anissa ordered a deviled egg sandwich. It arrived as a sort of Leaning Tower of sandwiches--about five stories of bread, lettuce, pickles and a pint of golden deviled egg. Anissa struggled with it heroically.

What Anissa really likes best is avocados. "I just love avocados so much, I could marry them! And I like apples--except when I have these front teeth missing and just make a little path down an apple. I can't stand to hear the scraping. And I love watermelon.

"Next, I'll tell you what I don't like." She dramatizes her aversion by clenching all available teeth, raising her eyebrows, and sliding her large eyes to their corners. "I hate spinach." A shudder. "I hate broccoli." A prolonged shudder. "And--worst of all--hot dogs!"

Seeing your startled expression, she explains airily, "You have to put all that stuff on them to keep them from sticking in your throat, then the stuff falls all over your clothes.

A little girl's pleasures

She considers this situation glumly, then brightens. "But I love real dogs. My mother bought us a puppy, but the poor puppy was sick. We were afraid it might die, so my mother took it back to the kennel."

The subject of pets has not been exhausted. "Another thing I love is cats. We have two cats, one named Tiger, and one that is name Shrimpy because she's kind of pinky-orange. Both of our cats are girls, so my brother and I can keep all the kittens."

An expert at small talk, Anissa leaps deftly onto another subject, corollary to the talk of cats. "Do you like superstitions? I love them. I'll tell you some of my favorites: Don't throw a hat on the bed. Don't whistle in the dressing room. Don't walk under a ladder.

"But my best superstition is: If something is lost, rub the Ramji and you will find whatever is lost, or it will come home. Our cat Tiger was lost, so I rubbed the Ramji, and Tiger came home."

Ramji, it turns out, is the name of a ceramic frog first created for an episode in My Three Sons (also a Fedderson Production). So far, his powers have been tested only in the area of summoning home hungry, exhausted cats.

From a discussion of the supernatural authority of frogs, Anissa easily segued to another topic: "Do you like riddles? Good. Well, what is the longest caterpillar in the world? Give up? A traffic jam on the freeway. Okay. Here's another good one. What has eight legs and is all black? Give up? Four blackbirds. That's an easy one!"

Anissa also loves what she calls "creepy" stories and stoutly insists she is never afraid of the dark. "Oh, no. I love the dark! I like to go to bed and lie there and tell myself all kinds of stories."

She drinks daintily from her glass of chocolate milk, apparently ruminating, then asks, "Would you like to hear a funny story? Johnnie Whitaker told it to me, and Johnnie heard it at a party his parents had.

Words can fool you!

"This is the way it goes. There was this lady who had been drinking too much and pretty soon she couldn't speak very clearly. She didn't walk very well, either. So a nice gentleman said, 'I think I should take you home,' and the lady said, 'That'sh nice.' Then the gentleman said, 'Where do you live?' Then the lady said--they're in the car by this time--'You're passionate.' So the gentleman said, 'If I'm going to take you home, you'll have to tell me where your house is.' And the lady said, 'You're passionate.'" Anissa lifts an eyebrow at her audience. "Get it? See, she was saying, "You're passing it,' but not very clearly! I asked my mother what the real word 'passionate' meant and she said it meant that the lady thought the gentleman liked her. That was just what she thought. It wasn't really true.

"Words are all right," she adds thoughtfully, "but what I like best in school is arithmetic." She proceeds to demonstrate her skill and isn't stumped by even the trickiest problems posed by her tablemates.

"By George, I think she's got it," says a nearby jester.

"That's from My Fair Lady," Anissa promptly remarks.

She's learning all about show business rapidly. She loves what she's doing, has almost everything her childish heart desires. If she had anything to regret last Christmas, it was that all the Santas she saw were wearing white beards--not the familiar dark one she longed to see. Get well quick, Mr. French, and take Anissa out soon for another memorable romp. She misses you more than she can say.

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