PEOPLE
Forever a Brady! How embracing his past has led the former Brady Bunch star to a busy and joyful present.
Hannah Chubb, PEOPLE, December 20, 2021
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More than 50 years after he and a group of five fellow child actors and three show- biz vets somehow formed a family, Christopher Knight can’t escape his past as Peter Brady on The Brady Bunch—and that’s just fine with him. “The show was entertainment, but it transcended its initial purpose,” he says. “As often as some- body was watching us because we paralleled their lives, somebody was watching us because they were an only child, and we became their brothers and sisters. I fully respect and enjoy that. It’s an honor.”
After decades in other jobs both onscreen and off—including spending 20 years in the tech world and headlining a successful furniture company—Knight, 64, is back on TV alongside four former castmates—Barry Williams (who played Greg Brady), Mike Lookinland (Bobby), Susan Olsen (Cindy) and Robbie Rist (cousin Oliver)—in People Presents: Blending Christmas, a Lifetime holiday movie that also stars Haylie Duff and Aaron O’Connell. “It didn’t feel like work,” Knight says of the film, which was shot in Simi Valley, Calif., not far from Hermosa Beach, where he lives with his wife of five years, former Ms. Fitness USA Cara Kokenes, 46. “I say yes to projects that we’re all in because every time we get together, it’s like no time has passed. We’re like a family who live in different states and get together around the holidays.”
Unlike his TV family, Knight had a financially unstable childhood in New York and Los Ange- les with his artist mom, Wilma, and stage-actor father, Edward. Knight was 11 when he land- ed the role of the impulsive middle son on The Brady Bunch—which aired from 1969 to 1974, followed by numerous spinoffs and movies—and thus helped support the family. Still, “my father believed real acting happened onstage, and my mom didn’t like The Brady Bunch at all, because we weren’t that,” he says. “Only after I became an adult did I have conversations with her about how she was completely wrong.”
In the late 1980s the self-proclaimed “geek” traded acting for technology. “My career wasn’t really going anywhere at that point, and I’d always had that urge to understand how things work,” he explains. After buying his first computer, Knight was inspired. “I had ADD [attention deficit disorder] as a child—
which you can probably see watching the show— but the computer made it possible for me to write and spell and do all these things that I found very difficult.” He soon became a sales manager at a technology manufacturing company and went on to found three tech companies of his own: one specializing in 3D graphics, another in TV tuners and one that manufactured educational technology for children. Despite excelling in the field, Knight missed acting, and in the early 2000s he sought a return to television, landing on several reality shows, including The Surreal Life and My Fair Brady, which followed his relationship with his third wife, America’s Next Top Model winner Adrianne Curry. (They divorced in 2013.) “I think that the reality television thing is right for some people but not right for me,” Knight says. “When it’s about your life, it doesn’t end. I don’t want to do it again.”
Meanwhile, Knight has continued investing. In 2012 he began consulting for a furniture company started by a friend from high school that is now called Christopher Knight Home. Though he doesn’t design the pieces, Knight is active on the leadership and technology side and was “pleasantly surprised” to see Meghan Markle and Prince Har- ry in the company’s chairs for their interview with Oprah Winfrey earlier this year. “It was a huge deal. We call it Chairgate,” he says with a laugh.
When he’s not working on the furniture line or on TV, Knight is focused on an upcoming pod- cast—The Real Brady Bros, with Barry Williams— and his production company Former Prodigy Media, which recently completed its first documentary, Truelove: The Film. He and Kokenes also have a Cavalier King Charles spaniel puppy, Stella. “She’s a full-time job,” he jokes. With all that bustle, Knight is enjoying himself more than ever. “I’ve had a magical life,” he says, “but since I met my wife, these last 10 years really have been the most rewarding period of my life.