Kathy Garver, the beloved star who played Cissy Davis on the 1960s sitcom Family Affair, announced that her husband, David Travis, has died.
The actress, 79, who played orphaned teen Cissy Davis on the CBS sitcom from 1966 to 1971, shared the sad news in a Facebook post on Aug. 30. Garver posted a series of family photos with her husband and their son, Reid.
She captioned the post with, “I am sad to report that my beloved husband of 44 years David Travis passed away at 3:00 this morning losing his brave battle with cancer.”
As of 2015, Garver had been living in the Bay Area with her husband, whom she married in 1981, per the Los Angeles Times.
The following year, she told The Readerthat she met her future husband, an Omaha native, on a tennis court in Palm Springs.
Kathy Garver Revealed What Made Her Marriage Work
In a 2021 interview with Closer Weekly, Garver shared the secret to her four-decade marriage. “You have to really like the person,” she said. “My husband is a very nice person, in some ways nicer than me! So you have to like them, and recognize their niceness, and also, we have separate bank accounts! I think that is very important. I couldn’t imagine having a shared bank account with someone and needing to ask, ‘Oh, what did you spend money on there?’ I’m very independent and it works for us.”
On social media, fans offered Garver support following her husband’s death.
“My deepest condolences on your loss, Miss Garver,” one commentator wrote on Facebook.
“So very handsome, beautiful family,” another wrote.
On Family Affair, Garver played big sister to twins Buffy (Anissa Jones) and Jody (Johnny Whitaker). Jones died of a drug overdose at age 18 in 1976.
Garver continues to work as an actress, most recently in the 2024 movie Christmas Romance at the Roanoke Ranch.
