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The 'Child Penalty'
Don Knotts boasted one of the most eccentric flairs show business has ever seen. The actor’s posture, voice, mannerisms, facial expressions — everything he brought to a performance was comedy gold. Sadly, Knotts’ real-life story was far more tragic than the whimsical ones he often portrayed on screen.
Born to a poor farming family of six in Morgantown, West Virginia, in July 1924, the “Three’s Company” star grew up during the most tumultuous economic period in American history in a household where alcoholism was rampant. According to his autobiography, co-written with Robert Metz, “Barney Fife and Other Characters I Have Known,” shortly before his birth, Knotts’ father “suffered a severe nervous breakdown and physical collapse.” Due to his father’s ailing health, the family had to sell the farm and eke out a living renting rooms to nearby university students. While Knotts’ father often remained bedridden and immobile, he was nonetheless susceptible to violent mood swings, leading to two incidents where he threatened his wife with a knife — behavior that led to a brief stay at a mental hospital. “He got almost no therapy,” Knotts wrote. “There were no mood stabilizers, no Elavil, no Prozac. I’m confident that in today’s world my father would have been treated for psychotic depression. Modern medicine might have had him on his feet and active, getting on with his life.”
In 1937, Knotts lost his father to pneumonia, and in 1941, his brother William Earl — commonly known as “Shadow” — died due to a severe asthma attack. Knotts’ turbulent and abusive relationship with one of his older brothers, Willis, further marred his upbringing, leading the future Hollywood star to seek some form of healing through years in therapy.
