David Cassidy in the News
Coming back to roost
July 18, 1993
"Partridge Family" members reunite to rekindle some of their fondest TV memories and hype their newfound careers.
By Diane Werts
Pacific Stars And Stripes
David Cassidy "walked away from it at the top," he says "and the only person that cares about that is me."
He was maybe the biggest teen idol of the TV age during the "Partridge Family" run, but he didn't exactly parlay that fame into a continuing career. After all that non-stop work and overwhelming fan mania what he did next was:
"Nothing. I retired. I went for four years without working at all. I was rich, and I could afford to do it."
Financially, maybe. Professionally, he took a hit, since there's nothing more fragile in Hollywood than teen-idol status.
But that was never Cassidy's goal. He was an actor to begin with, who before his big gig had played guest roles on such shows as "Marcus Welby, M.D." "I was an actor trying to make a living, I was 19, I'd just moved out of the house and was solely supporting myself, and I did every job I could get. 'The Partridge Family was just one.
I had no idea when I said I'd do it that my life could turn so dramatically."
Or that the show would remain his identifying credit for a quarter-century. Cassidy's subsequent stop-and-start career has been marked by persistent bad luck and bad timing. His show-biz return was to the theater in the early '80s in touring shows and Broadway musicals, but that was before the big rage for stars on stage.
In the mid-'80s, he recorded some decent albums and even had one hit single - but he also had two record companies collapse the same month they were releasing his latest recordings.
Four years ago, he starred in a big-screen 70s time-travel spoof called "Spirit of 76" - but that was before platform shoes were back, and the studio hardly released the film. And then last year, when he and his wife, Sue Shifrin, reacted to the Los Angeles riots after the verdict in the Rodney King beating trial by writing the song "Stand and Be Proud" and assembling 1,500 performers for a multiracial video whose proceeds went to urban rebuilding, Cassidy stayed in the background.
So here he is - 43 years old, settled down with his third wife and their 2-year-old son, Beau - talking about "The Partridge Family" again. "But nobody forced this on me," he says. "I've started feeling over the last couple of years very protective of 'The Partridge Family' and, if anything, defending it. "People don't remember just how successful it was and what a well-crafted show it was for what it was."
He's writing a book about those experiences and preparing a touring concert show that's "a 70s celebration, since that was the last decade dedicated to having a good time, having a party." (He'll also join the cast of Broadway's "Blood Brothers" next month.)
Nobody is happier to talk about the "Partridge Family" revival than Danny Bonaduce. "It's the most press I've ever had without being busted," says the one-time kid quipster turned 33-year-old quipster, whose new career as a radio disc jockey has gotten much less ink than his late-'80s appearances on police blotters. "I've had some pretty severe addiction problems in my life," he admits, leading to much publicized "child star" arrests involving drugs and prostitutes. Bonaduce's straight now, and after stints in Phoenix, Ariz., and Philadelphia, he's the evening talk man at Chicago's WLUP-AM, where "I earn a much better living as a DJ than I ever earned as Danny Partridge. "
Shirley Jones had the most visible career before "The Partridge Family" - top Hollywood musicals ("Carousel," "The Music Man") and an Oscar ("Elmer Gantry") - and the most visible after. Married to actor-turned-agent Marty Ingels, she regularly does TV and sings with orchestras. "I have more work than I know what to do with," she says, "unlike so many people my age (59)." But she's finding time to tout "Partridge Family" repeats because the series "played a very important role in my life. "Up to that time, I'd been doing so much travel, and I still had three small children to raise, and being able to stay home and still work was too wonderful for me."
Jones still plays the mother role in updating the whereabouts of her TV kids: She says Suzanne Crough has three children and owns a bookstore in a small town south of Los Angeles, although "I've lost total track of whatever happened to Brian Forster. I believe he's out of the business." As for Susan Dey ("L.A. Law," "Love & War"), Jones says "I see her in this town quite a lot at parties and so forth."
