The Tragedy of Danny Bonaduce
By Ian Fortnam,
Vox Magazine
1996
EVEN NOW, after almost three decades of relative sanity, it's utterly impossible to erase the excruciatingly impish image of Danny Bonaduce from the nation's collective consciousness.
This carrot-topped, cheeky-chopped, nauseating gnome initially burst to prominence as a rancorous eleven-year old smart-arse who was purported to play bass for the Partridge Family. Bonaduce rapidly became a hate-figure of truly international repute with his helium-pitched jackdaw croak, precocious hard-nosed business acumen, and the one essential characteristic peculiar to all auspicious child stars, a face you could never tire of punching.
Bonaduce initially inflicted his innumerable freckles onto TV land in 1964 when, at the age of five, he appeared on Bewitched. But it was not until September 25th 1970, when he made his first appearance as Danny Partridge, that he truly hit pay dirt. Sick with jealousy at the money-spinning success of Screen Gems' The Monkees, NBC decided to launch their own fictitious pop combo onto the world market via the miracle of the cathode ray tube, thus The Partridge Family was born.
Based on "America's First Family Of Music", The Cowsills, the series starred Shirley Jones (star of numerous film musicals including Oklahoma! and Carousel) and her implausibly cute stepson, David Cassidy. The pair recorded the music for the series with the aid of session musicians, enjoying a string of international chart hits (not least 'I'll Meet You Halfway' which entered the US chart this month in 1971), but the remaining Partridges (Susan Dey, Suzanne Crough, Jeremy Gelbwaks and the boy Bonaduce) had to content themselves with miming unconvincingly and cracking lamentable gags.
After three long years of smirking self-righteously at the Partridge Family's "manager", Dave Madden, Bonaduce turned up for work one morning to find his meal ticket well and truly punched. The studio gate-guard reportedly told him; "You can go back home - the Partridge Family doesn't live here anymore." Undaunted, the loathsome ginger dwarf embarked on a whole new career: professional arsewit.
In a film career so turkey-hobbled it virtually gobbled, Danny appeared in such cinematic catastrophes as Murder On Flight 502, The Hot One and Tits & Ass Academy. He floundered into a stint of stand-up comedy on the behest of David Cassidy, and even guested on Love Boat. But by 1984, Bonaduce was broke, he'd allegedly squandered in excess of $200,000 on cocaine. In March 1991, Danny finally hit rock bottom, when he was sentenced to three years probation for beating up a prostitute who turned out to be a transvestite.
In '95, Bonaduce produced Danny! Initially, little more than an infomercial for a memory-enhancement course, it developed into a fully-fledged talk show complete with a baying studio audience and a succession of sociopathic trailer trash obviously relishing the opportunity to air their dirtiest laundry. But before long, it was again reduced to infomercial status. Danny's greatest success, so far, has been as a DJ. He famously tattooed his buttocks with the station logo, and faxed the results to his listeners, whilst working on Chicago's WLUP, and currently commutes between Detroit and Chicago to present two shows a day. Yet the ultimate jewel in the leering leprechaun's nutter crown has to be the occasion in January '94 when he challenged Donny Osmond to a boxing match.
Astonishingly, the bout actually took place, and Bonaduce, despite repeatedly losing his headgear and flailing like a recalcitrant channel-swimmer, soundly whupped his toothsome opponent's sorry Mormon ass. Ever the humanitarian, Bonaduce donated his $8,400 purse to the Tom and Roseanne Arnold Foundation.
