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C'mon get happy: Shirley Jones is coming to Midland
October 14, 2010
By Scott Tady
Beaver County Times, Pa.
Some of the best acting Shirley Jones ever did was pretending to be comfortable driving "The Partridge Family" bus.
"That was a stick shift, and I had learned to drive on an automatic, so that was a whole new thing for me," Jones said.
Jones faked her way through it at first, but by the end of the "Partridge Family's" 1970-1974 run she was skilled enough with a stick to impress a tough audience.
"The Teamsters gave me a medal that said I was a bus driver," Jones said.
Jones, an Oscar-winning Western Pennsylvania native, will be the passenger in a more luxurious vehicle Saturday as she's whisked to Midland to headline the "Divas Live!" concert at Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center.
"It's about time I'm considered to be a diva," Jones joked at the onset of a recent phone interview. "That sounds pretty damn good to me."
Jones will be backed by an eight-piece band led by her musical director, Ron Abel, on piano.
"I'll sing Broadway tunes, of course, things I did that the audience comes to hear me do from 'The Music Man,' 'Carousel' 'Oklahoma!' and 'South Pacific,'" Jones said.
"I tell some stories, too, about my life and what I'm doing now."
The 76-year-old Jones is as busy as ever.
As soon as she's done in Midland, she heads to the set of a Hallmark TV movie for four weeks.
"It's a charming movie about a city girl who moves to the country," Jones said.
The young woman falls for a guy, who like the rest of his family, is crazy about sports.
"She doesn't even know how to throw a ball or hold a tennis racket," said Jones, who plays the family's 80-year-old grandmother, a sports enthusiast who helps teach the girl to appreciate sports.
The movie's shooting schedule will force Jones to postpone her duties serving on a Point Park University board that's striving to renovate the Pittsburgh Playhouse in the city's Oakland section.
Her father used to take her to Pittsburgh Playhouse shows, which sparked her passion for musical theater.
Jones was an only child, named after Shirley Temple. At a young age, her family moved from Charleroi to the nearby tiny town of Smithton, where her grandfather had launched the brewery that produced Stoney's Beer.
"I used to play in the river, the Youghiogheny, where the brewery was," Jones said. "It was wonderful."
She'd drive to Pittsburgh to take singing lessons from Ralph Lewando, a critic for the then-Pittsburgh Press.
She took the career leap and moved to New York, landing roles in Rodgers and Hammerstein's "South Pacific," and then the coveted role of Laurie in the 1955 film version of "Oklahoma!"
Broadway success continued with "Carousel," "The Music Man" and "April Love."
She won an Oscar for 1960's "Elmer Gantry," playing prostitute Lulu Baines, the former lover of the title character's religious huckster played by Burt Lancaster.
"That movie still holds up well," Jones said. "The score, the directing, and of course, Burt Lancaster's best acting of all time. I could watch it over and over again, not for my performance."
Her 50-year-old Oscar trophy sits on a pedestal in the living room of her California home.
"It's the first thing you see," she said.
For laughs, her husband, actor Marty Ingels, put a small figurine of a man praying at the Oscar's feet.
The couple lives 90 minutes away from California's San Bernardino National Forest, where they built a 9/11 memorial on the north shore of Big Bear Lake. The memorial includes a girder from the World Trade Center provided by the mayor of New York, along with a stage for summer performances, statues in honor of emergency rescue personnel, and photographs commemorating the 9/11 tragedy.
"We're still raising money for it," Jones said.
The "Divas Live!" concert will raise money for the Carnegie Library of Midland, the second oldest library in Beaver County, built in 1916.
Jones will arrive in town on Friday to teach a seminar to Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School students.
She can tell them the tale of how she turned down the lead female role for "The Brady Bunch," and then settled for ABC's "The Partridge Family," a comedy about a widow and her five children traveling the land in a groovy-colored bus, performing as a pop band. The show made a star out of Jones' real-life stepson, David Cassidy.
Jones and Cassidy still perform together in concert, and you'll be seeing them soon in a Toyota commercial.
Remembered today as a sweet, if cheesy slice of '70s television, "The Partridge Family" solidified Jones' fame, while also typecasting her. Jones looks back fondly on that show, not so much for the career boost, but for what it did for her family life.
I already had traveled all over the world and was making movies, but was looking to settle down and be a mamma now that my kids were in school," she recalled. So she auditioned for "The Partridge Family," ignoring the advice of agents who said if she took a TV role, she'd be that character forever.
"Well, they weren't kidding," Jones said. "But that show gave me the opportunity to raise my kids. We all became very close. And I had a great time."
So don't be afraid to mention the "Partridge Family" if you stick around after "Divas Live!" to meet Jones.
"I hope you all come out and talk to me," Jones said. "I'll probably be selling CDs."
The first half of "Divas Live!" features four local talents, each performing three songs.
They are:
- Harriett Washington -- Director and choir member for the Praise and Worship Team at the Mt. Calvary Chapel in Midland, and a solo artist and banquets and conferences. The Shippingport resident plans to perform "Jesus is Love" as one of her three songs.
- Christina Howell -- A music literature teacher at the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center, who sang there at last year's Jazz Pop Faculty Recital. Her selections will include "Orange Colored Sky" and "Vanilla Ice Cream."
- Kelley Krepin DeFade -- A professional singer for 18 years, she is in her fourth year teaching voice and an opera workshop at Lincoln Park.
- Amber Nicole -- A senior musical theater major at Lincoln Park whose school productions include "The King and I," "A Chorus Line," "South Pacific" and "Shall We Dance?" She performed in a music video Lincoln Park students made for the Pennsylvania Department of Health to teach prevention of the H1N1 flu. She also was among four Lincoln Park students to win a national music video contest sponsored by the Ford Motor Co.
"Divas Live!" starring Shirley Jones.
Time: 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
Place: Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center, Midland.
Tickets: $30. Proceeds benefit the Carnegie Library of Midland.
Information: lppac.org or (724) 643-9004.
