The ‘Andy Griffith Show’ actor was a father to two children, Karen and Thomas
Don Knotts was known for his silly and endearing characters on-screen, but he was equally funny at home with his two kids, Karen and Thomas.
The late The Andy Griffith Show star welcomed two children, Karen and Thomas Knotts, with his first wife, Kathryn Metz, to whom he was married from 1947 until 1964. Following their divorce, Knotts continued to raise his son and daughter on his own and would go on to marry twice more.
“Dad was kind of wild,” Karen told PEOPLE in 2006. “He was really quite a ladies’ man, especially between marriages.”
Still, his two children were always his first priority. Off-screen, Knotts struggled with depression and hypochondria, but no matter what he was dealing with, he was “a very loving father,” Karen told Woman’s World in January 2025.
On Feb. 24, 2006, Knotts died at the age of 81 due to complications from lung cancer, but his sense of humor never wavered. “He had this funniness that was just completely, insanely natural,” Karen said. “Even when he was dying, he was making us laugh in hysterics.”
Here’s everything to know about Don Knotts’ two children, Karen and Thomas.
Karen Ann Knotts, 71
Karen Knotts was born on April 1, 1954, a decade before Knotts and Metz divorced in 1964. Despite that, Karen’s childhood was happy and full of love, if “a little surreal.”
“We lived in Glendale, which was almost Mayberry-like in smallness. It was a tight-knit community, like a small Midwest town in the middle of Los Angeles,” she told the Murfreesboro Post in April 2011.
Thanks to his Emmy-winning role on The Andy Griffith Show, Knotts was a well-recognized celebrity by the time Karen was in school. From a young age, she understood that because he was on TV and famous, he was different from other dads. Still, his fame didn’t change his humility.
“Life with my dad was so normal,” she said. “He was such a great, multi-faceted man. My relationship with him was fantastic.”
Speaking to Fox News in November 2021, Karen opened up about her father’s lifelong struggle with depression and how that shaped her own upbringing. “I became like a mini shrink,” she said. “I would try to motivate him not to feel so depressed, to feel more positive about things.”
Most of the time, though, he was upbeat and jovial. “My father was witty and funny all on his own,” Karen said. “He was a good father. He wasn’t a tough father at all, but he had high standards for us.”
One thing they did butt heads about was acting. From an early age, Karen wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps on-screen, but Knotts wasn’t exactly thrilled about the idea. Although he was happy to bring her and her younger brother on set with him — and even let them act as extras in one of his films — he didn’t want them to pursue acting as a career.
“He knew a lot of people that were trying to make it in the business and just failed. They had no way out. They led pretty difficult lives. And he didn’t want to see that happen to me,” she told Fox News. “He just didn’t want me to go through that struggle in Hollywood.”
Still, Karen was determined to become an actress. “I remember he had a variety show when I was 16 and he would put me on the show,” she said. “We would do a sketch together. He would sing to me and it was just wonderful. So he eventually came around.”
In 1986, they shared the screen again. Knotts reunited with Andy Griffith and Ron Howard for the television movie, Return to Mayberry, and Karen was cast to play Opie’s receptionist.
“It was amazing — I loved it,” she told Sedona Red Rock News in February 2016 of the experience. “They put me up in my own hotel room. I felt like part of the old gang.”
Karen has continued to work in the entertainment industry as an actress, both on-screen and onstage. She’s also an accomplished writer and comedian. Following his death in 2006, Karen launched her one-woman show, Tied Up In Knotts, a story about growing up with the famed actor.
“I wanted to pay tribute to him in the way I knew him best: as an amazing, loving dad,” she wrote on her website. “I try to capture the essence of Don, the man, because I always thought he was the funniest when he was just being himself.”
In 2021, she published a memoir, also titled Tied Up in Knotts, about her father. “He was funny, likable and just a wonderful dad right up to the end,” she told Fox News. “And I hope the book captures just how great he was.”
Thomas Knotts, 68
Knotts and Metz welcomed their second child, son Thomas Knotts, in February 1957.
Tom grew up with his parents and older sister in Glendale, a suburban community in Los Angeles. When he was just 3 years old, his father rose to stardom thanks to his role on The Andy Griffith Show.
His career in Hollywood meant that Knotts was often away from his family. “He was gone a lot, but he was always checking in on us,” Karen told Fox News. “And he always made time for us when he wasn’t working. I never felt neglected at all. Neither did my brother. And we did get to go on the set too, which was great.”
Knotts left The Andy Griffith Show in 1965 and went on to pursue a film career. Along with visiting him on various film and TV show sets, Karen and Tom were both extras in his movie, The Shakiest Gun in the West.
In 1970, Knotts hosted his own variety show, The Don Knotts Show, which only lasted one season. In the 2015 biography Andy and Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show, Tom shared that one year was a particularly difficult period in his father’s career.
“That’s the hardest I ever remember seeing him work,” he said. “He worked day and night under such pressure. He was stressed out.”
Unlike his older sister, Tom tends to stay out of the spotlight and found being the son of a famous actor “traumatic” at times, he told Karen in her memoir.
“I’ve always had a conflict about it,” he said. “On the one hand, I like the attention and that it makes me unique and stand out. But I felt that in my field of engineering, my colleagues would take me less seriously. I still feel that way, truth be told.”
According to his LinkedIn, Tom has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California and a master’s from the University of California, Berkeley, and is an electrical engineer. In 1993, Tom and his wife, Cathy, welcomed a son, making Knotts a grandfather for the first time.
