Anissa Jones

At the age of six, Anissa Jones was taken to an open audition by her mother for a breakfast cereal commercial, which ended up being the fledgling actress' first television exposure. Two years later, producers cast Jones as Elizabeth "Buffy" Patterson-Davis on the 1966 CBS sitcom, "Family Affair." The Buffy character, along with fraternal twin brother Jody and older sister Cissy, were orphans sent to live with Brian Keith's Uncle Bill and butler, Mr. French (Sebastian Cabot), after the children's parents died in a car crash. With her trademark curly pigtails, cute freckled face and precocious innocence, Jones's popularity soared. Amid the grinding promotion for the show, she even landed a small role in the 1969 Elvis Presley film, "The Trouble with Girls." By the time of the show's 1971 cancellation, Jones was 13 and felt typecast. She lost not only the role of Regan MacNeil to Linda Blair in "The Exorcist," but the Iris role in 1976's "Taxi Driver" to Jodie Foster. This frustration combined with her parents' bitter breakup and custody battle drove Jones to shoplifting and abusing drugs, and she died from an accidental drug overdose on August 28, 1976.