Barry Williams
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| Barry Williams | |
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| Born | September 30, 1954 Santa Monica, California |
Barry William Blenkhorn (b. 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 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 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 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.
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 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 on Sirius Satellite Radio's "Totally '70s" channel. Williams is now separated from his wife and has a son named Brandon born in 2003.
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Categories: 1954 births | Living people | American actors | American television actors | American child actors | American musical theatre actors | Sirius Satellite Radio personalities | People from Santa Monica, California | Brady Bunch actors | Full House actors | That '70s Show actors | Game show contestants | I've Got a Secret contestants
