David Cassidy on the Web
Shirley Jones knows music lasts
'Partridge Family' star set to take the stage in Springs
August 28, 2008
By Warren Epstein
The Gazette
http://www.gazette.com
Shirley Jones is finally getting her name back.
She will perform in Colorado Springs next week for the Colorado Festival of World Theatre not as Shirley Partridge - the '70s TV icon - but as Shirley Jones, the mom and acclaimed star of stage and screen.
Her identity crisis started in 1969, when her agents approached her about an offer to star in a new TV show called "The Partridge Family." They told her it would be ground-breaking in its use of music. It would be about a fun, musical, traveling family in a funky bus. And it just might be a huge hit.
"But then they told me I shouldn't take it. They said, 'Even if it's successful, you'll be Shirley Partridge for the rest of your life,'" she said during a recent phone interview.
They also told her it might derail one of the most successful movie and theater careers in showbiz. She had been the only performer to sign a long-term personal contract with Rodgers and Hammerstein. She had starred in just about every one of their musicals, from "South Pacific" to "The Music Man."
She'd done more than 30 films, many of them Rodgers and Hammerstein adaptations, and won an Oscar for her role as a hooker in "Elmer Gantry" in 1960.
Her agents wondered why she'd want to trade all that for sitcom.
She had her reasons.
"My kids were in school," she said, explaining that the time demands of a TV show were much more reasonable than the grueling schedules of movies and Broadway shows.
She also liked that she'd be working with her stepson, David Cassidy.
"I was the evil stepmother before that," she said. "This gave us a chance to get to know one another ... as people."
She ended up loving "The Partridge Family," not only for what it did for her relationship with Cassidy and for his career, but for the new connection it made with fans. Turns out, her agents were right.
"I became Mrs. Partridge, and that was fine," she said. "The character was wonderful for me."
The pop-culture fascination with all things Partridge endured, even into the late '90s, as the behind-the-scenes story of the musical family was played out in two TV movies: "Come On Get Happy: The Partridge Family Story" and "The David Cassidy Story."
The Partridge craze continued into 2004, when VH1 premiered a new talent show, "In Search of the New Partridge Family."
The pop phenomena may continue, but Jones has kept moving on, returning to her first love: the stage. But this time around she would be taking different roles than the ingenues she'd started on.
"Now I'm playing the old ladies," she said with a laugh.
One of her most recent revivals has been on Broadway in "42nd Street," costarring with her son Patrick Cassidy.
"I hadn't done a show in 38 years," she said. "I told him, 'I don't think I can do this.' Patrick said, 'Don't worry, Mom, we'll take this one step at a time.' All of a sudden, he was the daddy and I was the kid."
In fact, it was Cassidy's suggestion that's bringing both of them to Colorado Springs to perform "My Favorite Things, a Tribute to Rodgers and Hammerstein," along with Tony-award nominee Marin Mazzie and her husband, Theatre World Award winner Jason Danieley.
The return to Rodgers and Hammerstein is like a homecoming for Jones.
"I love the music," she said. "It is still so beautiful. I do concerts and have kids 10 or 12 years old coming up to me telling me that 'Oklahoma!' is their favorite. ... The music will be here long after we're gone."
You never know. It might even outlast "The Partridge Family."
