Barry Williams
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| Barry Williams | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 30, 1954 Santa Monica, California |
Barry William Blenkhorn (born September 30, 1954), known professionally as Barry Williams, is an American actor best known for his role as Greg Brady in the ABC television series The Brady Bunch.
Williams was born in Santa Monica, California to Doris May Moore and Canadian-born Frank Millar Blenkhorn.[1] He decided as a very young child that he wanted to be an actor, and in 1967 he made his television debut in an episode of Dragnet. He played guest roles in That Girl, Mission Impossible and The Mod Squad before being cast as Greg Brady in The Brady Bunch sitcom in 1969. As the eldest of the kids, his storylines often involved his many romances, and as the Greg character reached his mid-teens the show's producers began to groom and promote Williams as a teen idol.
With the show's demise in 1974, Williams was unable to attract the type of high profile roles that might have expanded on his earlier success. He resumed playing guest roles on television, and became involved in musical theatre, touring with productions such as Grease, The Sound of Music and West Side Story, as well as making unsuccessful attempts to establish a career as a recording artist. However he was later able to capitalize on his type-cast of being "Greg Brady". His 1992 autobiography Growing Up Brady spent three months on the New York Times bestseller list.
In 2000 Williams was involved in a notorious dispute with Actors' Equity Association, the union which represents stage actors. An Equity member since 1974, Williams signed with Troika Productions to play the male lead in a non-union tour of The Sound of Music. Equity objected to this, saying that the tour was being marketed as a "Broadway" production (which would imply union talent) and that the musicians and stagehands were all members of their respective unions--the only non-union talent were the actors, who received sub-standard pay and no benefits (required by any union contract). Williams's pay was of course commensurate with his star status--in essence, Williams was being paid star wages at the expense of his fellow actors. Equity subsequently fined Williams two weeks of his tour salary, and he responded by complaining to the National Labor Relations Board. The fine remains unpaid as of yet.
Always proud of his success with The Brady Bunch, Williams has appeared in various Brady TV movie reunions, has built a cabaret act that pays tribute to his past, and has played himself in the film Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star (2003), which is about a former child star who finds himself out of work. In 2000, when Eminem had a hit with "The Real Slim Shady," Williams released his own parody version, "The Real Greg Brady."
Williams is also shown briefly as an audience member in the video to the Peter Gabriel song "The Barry Williams Show" (2002). Gabriel said that he hadn't known about Williams when he wrote the song, but he was asked to do a cameo anyway. Williams participated in a celebrity boxing match with former Partridge Family TV star Danny Bonaduce, but lost to Bonaduce, who is a martial arts black belt. Barry also appeared with his former Brady Bunch co-star Christopher Knight (Peter Brady) on a 2006 episode of the Fox network sitcom That '70s Show. He and Knight played a gay couple who moved in next door to the Formans. He and Knight have remained close friends since their Brady Bunch days, and he appeared in several episodes of Knight's reality show series My Fair Brady.
He currently hosts The Brady Brunch with Barry Williams Sundays through Fridays from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern Time on Sirius Satellite Radio's "Totally '70s" channel. He often takes part in the annual "World's Largest Disco" event in Buffalo, NY where he discos his heart out. Williams is now divorced from his second wife and has a son named Brandon born in 2003.
