David Cassidy: Alcoholism Results in a Tragic End for a Seventies Teen Idol

One irony of this blog is that the background is essentially a copy of the pattern of the school bus turned family/band tour bus of the fictitious musical family known as "The Partridge Family". And yet, in spite of the design similarity, I had just a single post (see it at https://hgm.sstrumello.com/2012/06/cast-reunions-partridge-family.html for details) about that iconic TV show, and it was mostly about my design choice, with little about the show itself or the characters on the show (although I subsequently added a "P.S." to that post). This post is about the second member of his family's passing a number of  years ago. I never published this blog post, but felt the time might be right to do so now. 

Actor and singer David Cassidy passed away from multiple organ failure (specifically, liver and kidney; see his obituary HERE) on November 21, 2017. At the time of his death, he was age 67. However, David's passing seemed ominously more like history repeating itself rather than a complete surprise of a former teen idol's passing. David's own father Jack Cassidy, himself a famous Tony-winning stage and TV actor, had died almost exactly 41 years earlier in a house fire which was caused when his lit cigarette ignited the sofa he had passed out on due to intoxication. David Cassidy's own life, and his eventual death, looked eerily similar to his own father's. 

"The Partridge Family" was an American musical sitcom which ran ABC based very loosely on the real-life musical family known as The Cowsills. An Amazon Prime movie about The Cowsills called "Family Band: The Cowsills Story" is worth seeing if you're interested in the topic. At the very least, some of their famous songs might be familiar. 

David Cassidy's claim to fame was as a teenaged star of "The Partridge Family", which co-starred his step-mother, Academy-Award winner Shirley Jones, who rose to fame starring in film versions of several Broadway musicals including "Oklahoma!", "Carousel", and "The Music Man". On the show, David Cassidy played her fictitious son Keith Patridge (several other actors/actresses also co-starred in the show as siblings, including actress Susan Dey as sister Laurie, Danny Bonaduce who played brother Danny, while Suzanne Crough played sister Tracy and Brian Forster played brother Chris and actor Dave Madden starred as the band's manager Reuben Kincaid). At the time, there was really no such thing as "omnimedia", and Academy Award-winning performers like Shirley Jones generally did not cross-over to the humble medium of broadcast television until they had reached the end of their careers. However, Shirley Jones broke with that tradition, saying she thought that was ridiculous.  She had already won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing a vengeful prostitute in "Elmer Gantry" in 1960. But by the early 1970's, she viewed television as a useful, respectable way to earn a living acting while raising a family. 

In an interview with the Vancouver Sun, Jones said: "The problem with Partridge—though it was great for me and gave me an opportunity to stay home and raise my kids—when my agents came to me and presented it to me, they said if you do a series and it becomes a hit show, you will be that character for the rest of your life and your film career will go into the toilet, which is what happened. But I have no regrets." 

As a result of the show, her step-son David Cassidy became a teen idol by playing the role of Keith Partridge, the son of character Shirley Partridge (played by Shirley Jones), in the hit TV show "The Partridge Family" which ran on ABC from 1970 to 1974, although reruns of the show continued running in syndication for years after the show's original run. 

Famous Father, With Family a History of Alcohol Abuse 

Actor Jack Cassidy

David Cassidy was the son of the late actor and singer Jack Cassidy, who was himself a musical performer on Broadway, winning a Tony Award in 1964 for Best Performance by a Featured Actor for his role as Steven Kodaly in the play "She Loves Me". On television, during the 1950's and 1960's, Jack Cassidy became a very frequent guest star on TV, appearing in a wide variety of TV shows, including on "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour", in "Gunsmoke", "Bewitched", "Get Smart", "That Girl", "Hawaii Five-O", "Cannon", "McCloud" and also as a guest star on various TV game shows of the day, including the "Match Game". 

David Cassidy was a son from Jack Cassidy's first marriage to actress Evelyn Ward. However, Jack Cassidy was known to have problems with alcoholism (in addition to suffering from bipolar disorder), which contributed to the failure of his multiple marriages, and ultimately, his untimely death. Jack Cassidy married Shirley Jones on August 5, 1956. Together, they had three sons, Shaun, Patrick, and Ryan. As noted, David Cassidy was actually Jack's son from his first marriage to actress Evelyn Ward, hence Shirley Jones became his stepmother. Jack Cassidy and Shirley Jones split-up in 1974 following Jack Cassidy's 1973 diagnosis as manic depressive and bipolar disorder. David Cassidy's birth mother Evelyn Ward died in 2012.

Jack Cassidy died rather tragically at just age 49 in an apartment fire in 1976. The forensics showed that the fire was caused by a cigarette which he was smoking at the time which ignited a naugahyde (synthetic leather) sofa he'd passed out on due to his intoxication. He was already divorced from his second wife Shirley Jones at the time, but it's believed that he came home drunk after going out to a gay bar in West Hollywood, where he was seen by many witnesses the evening before. 

Before his own death, son David Cassidy also went on the record acknowledging his own father as bisexual, citing personal accounts and reports, both anecdotal and published, of his father's known same-sex affairs, something that neither he nor his siblings knew about until after the father's death. But in her 2013 memoir, Shirley Jones also wrote that Jack Cassidy had several same-sex affairs during her marriage to him, including a notable one with famous composer and songwriter Cole Porter. 

However, Shirley Jones went on record in her biography about how her ex-husband Jack Cassidy tried to push the limits of her sexuality and she said that, combined with his alcohol abuse, depression and bipolar disorder ultimately led to her filing for divorce. 

(see https://www.huffpost.com/entry/shirley-jones_0_n_3647862 for more)

Anyway, David Cassidy then was able to take the fame he'd gained from his TV career (he starred in nearly 100 episodes of "The Partridge Family") and turn it into fame as a pop singer in the seventies. But as time passes, aging teen idols aren't guaranteed ongoing success once the spotlight is no longer following them. David Cassidy later said that he found his sitcom role to be very stifling, and that he had issues with the tabloid fame that "surrounded" his every move.

In May 1972, perhaps in an effort to alter his public persona which was so connected to the TV character Keith Partridge, David Cassidy appeared completely nude on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in a cropped Annie Leibovitz photo; among other things, although the accompanying Rolling Stone article also mentioned that Cassidy was riding around New York in the back of a car "stoned and drunk".

His gamble paid off initially; as he did get invited on the TV talk show circuit, and even landed a few guest roles on TV. There was also brief renewed interest in his vocal talent. But his underlying drinking problem never really disappeared, even with a risky gamble to shed his puritanical public persona by posing nude in a national magazine. For the record, the image and the article from that can be viewed online at: 

https://www.rollingstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/rs-28432-22563_lg.jpg

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/david-cassidy-naked-lunch-box-178864/

Failed Marriages and Alcoholism Reminiscent of His Father's 

David's own first two marriages — first to actress Kay Lenz and subsequently to horse trainer Meryl Tanz — ended in divorce after only a few years each. David Cassidy had a daughter, Katie, back in 1986 with fashion model Sherry Williams, but he acknowledged "I've never had a relationship with her. I was her biological father but I didn't raise her." David Cassidy also had a son named Beau, in 1991. However, his wife divorced him shortly before his death and took sole custody of Beau, due in no small part to his alcohol abuse. 

Jack Cassidy: More Gay than Bisexual, But Was Forced Into Failed Marriages to Women During the Era of "The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name"

David's failed marriages were also eerily reminiscent of his own father Jack Cassidy's own failed marriages. However, it was important to note that David did not confront a necessity to try and behave as a heterosexual as his father did when he was coming of age and working as an actor. His son David simply inherited his problems with alcohol abuse.

In the years preceding his death, David Cassidy was relying very heavily on things like performing in low-paying dinner theaters and concert tours around the country for income. That's a tough way to earn a living, and it didn't pay very well. But more concerning was that like his father, David was definitely showing signs he was suffering from alcoholism, while his public denials proved he was not truly addressing the problem. 

For example, like many alcoholics, David Cassidy repeatedly assured family members that he was attending AA and going to rehab, and that he was no longer drinking. But there were clear clues he was lying. For example, in one notable concert performance, David Cassidy could not even remember the lyrics of a song he'd been performing for nearly 50 years, and he also fell off the stage. Not long after, he was also arrested in Florida for DUI. Those are clear signs of a drinking problem. 

Then, David Cassidy publicly announced that he was living with dementia and was retiring from all further performing (his desire to stop performing could have been to avoid another humiliating incident where he forgot lyrics during a performance, then falling off stage). He said that his mother and grandfather had also suffered from dementia at the end of their lives, and that "I was in denial, but a part of me always knew this was coming." 

But that was also completely false. He was definitely not suffering from dementia, rather he was suffering from chronic alcoholism and denial, plus his memory lapses while performing were due to his drinking, not due to dementia. 

Eventually, it finally looked as if he was finally facing his demons. In a surprisingly candid interview with an A&E producer (see the interview at https://www.aetv.com/specials/david-cassidy-the-last-session for details), David Cassidy stated that he'd just met with his doctor, and he confirmed that he had liver disease, meaning his life had "changed dramatically." Cassidy added that he had been unconscious and near death for the first few days after the incident, he said since then, he claimed his memory had returned. Cassidy also acknowledged that there was "no sign of [dementia] at this stage of [his] life," adding that "[it] was complete alcohol poisoning – and the fact is, I lied about my drinking." Cassidy said, "You know, I did it to myself, man. I did it to myself to cover up the sadness and the emptiness."

Sadly, the A&E interview would be his last. David Cassidy passed away at the age of 67, on November 21, 2017. At the time, he was awaiting a liver transplant; as his own liver was so damaged from cirrhosis, but his doctors were unable to find a suitable, eligible liver from a deceased donor before he died. 

Impressively, as I write this, David's step-mother Shirley Jones is 88 years old as of 2022, and she shows no apparent sign of illness beyond simply her age. Since 2015, however, she has been a widow. For 38 years, she was married to Marty Ingels, himself the star of dozens of TV sitcoms in the 1960's, and he was also known as a bit of a comedian, until Marty died of a heart attack. Her three other sons with David Cassidy are still alive. Their marriage seemed to work, even though they drove one another crazy from time to time.

In 2020, Shirley Jones finally opened up to the celebrity magazine Closer (see https://www.closerweekly.com/posts/shirley-jones-is-grateful-to-have-known-stepson-david-cassidy/ for detail) about David Cassidy and his passing: 

"The idea that the little boy I came to know and love as my stepson would've turned 70 [in 2020] is astonishing to me," Shirley Jones told Closer. "And I am grateful for all the wonderful times we shared together." 

While he was alive, David was equally fond of Shirley (who married his father, actor Jack Cassidy, and played his mother on "The Partridge Family"). He was quoted as saying that Shirley "taught me so much about how to deal with fame and success," he said. "She's one of the best human beings I've ever known." He also became very close with her sons with Jack (who were David's half-brothers): Shaun, Patrick and Ryan.

Where Are They Now: Shirley Jones

Here at Harvest Gold Memories, I've featured a recurring series I call "Pop Culture Reunions" where I share various video clips from different cast reunions of TV shows, movies or even musicians and bands that were popular back in the 1970s and 1980s. In June 2012, I featured one for "The Partridge Family" or http://goo.gl/yuqQN which ran on NBC's Today Show on March 1-2, 2010. Almost the entire cast was featured ... EXCEPT for Partridge Family mama Shirley Jones, and Susan Dey who played sister Laurie Partridge.

Shirley Jones' real-life stepson David Cassidy (who happened to play Keith Partridge on the show) said she couldn't make the cast reunion because she was out touring at the time.

That was kind of a bummer.

However, I guess that's a testament to the fact that academy award winner Shirley Jones remains extremely active and keeps herself busy even at age 75 (her age at the time of the reunion on the Today Show). Shirley Jones looks largely unchanged over the last 30 years. Today, her platinum blonde hair has turned completely white, which I think helps her to keep a youthful appearance. But aside from not having gained a pound since her first movie premiers, she looks pretty much the same as she did when she played Shirley Partridge.

Regular readers here may recall that I've also started to feature a segment from Australia's 7 television network called "Where Are They Now?" when I introduced everyone to a clip on "The Six Million Dollar Man" (or visit http://goo.gl/QkLm9). Apparently, that particular program ran only for about a year or two in Australia, but nevertheless featured one of the missing parties from "The Partridge Family", notably actress and singer Shirley Jones.

I should note that the segment I'm featuring today actually pre-dates the cast reunion for "The Partridge Family" by several years since it ran in 2007 whereas the reunion took place in 2010. However, I think this fills in a missing piece of info from the original posting on "The Partridge Family", and the discussion with Shirley Jones remains as relevant today as it was in 2007. She talks about how she got involved in television to do "The Partridge Family" at a time when everyone told her it would be career suicide (it wasn't), how she wanted to do the show so she could remain home with her sons, how she still stays in touch with many of her former castmembers from the show, and more.

Without further delay, catch that clip below, or by visiting http://youtu.be/rXfsDvdLeUI:



Let me just close by including some additional info on Shirley Jones that is not necessarily included in the preceding video.

For one thing, Shirley Jones has been happily married to a man by the name of Marty Ingels for the past 35 years! Talk about an enduring relationship, especially in Hollywood where marriages are sometimes considered disposable commodities. Although her marriage to Jack Cassidy ended in divorce in 1976, her marriage to Marty Ingels seems to have endured the test of time.

While they might appear to be an unlikely couple, as the book "Shirley & Marty: An Unlikely Love Story" (see http://amzn.to/WplTIK to buy the book) written by Shirley Jones, her husband Marty Ingels, and Mickey Herskowitz writes in a very entertaining way happens to note, he's a New York transplant who's also a comic, and they really seem to compliment one another very well. Shirley who is the quintessential American (I believe she's originally from Pittsburgh), while her husband Marty is a gruff, Jewish guy from Brooklyn, New York and his accent shows that you can take the man out of Brooklyn, but you can't take the Brooklyn out of the man!

However, both of them discussed on a very entertaining podcast of Stu's Show (hosted by Stu Showstak, see http://www.stusshow.com/) recorded on September 15, 2010, where Shirley commented that one of the reasons their marriage has endured for so long (certainly by Hollywood standards), in her own words, was "Because I'M the crazy one!". That podcast is available for $0.99, just visit http://www.stusshow.com/ and search in the archives for "Shirley Jones". I would have to say that podcast was a pretty entertaining look at Shirley Jones in a way that I would say is probably seldom seen by outsiders.

Shirley Jones also has her own website at http://www.shirleyjones.net/ which is also worth a visit if you're so inclined. She's got all kinds of stuff from her long and successful career in the entertainment business. Let me just remind everyone that although "The Partridge Family" was certainly not all she was known for, certainly anyone who remembers that show (either from original broadcasts, or broadcasts in syndication) might also like to visit an awesome fan-made website about "The Partridge Family" at http://cmongethappy.com/. There, you can find out virtually everything about the show, and it even has the font for the show you can download for your computer ... all free.

Pop Culture Reunion: The Partridge Family

Blog Design Revisions

When I began this blog, my objective was for a design that had elements of pop culture (and more specifically, seventies pop culture) all over it. I opted for a custom design, but settled on a mult-colored polka dot shopping bag design as the background, but always planned to replace it when I found something better suited. Today, I found it: the pattern painted on the bus from The Partridge Family!  It is believed the design on the bus was based on one from artist Piet Mondrian, who was known for his geometric designs, specifically the one known as Composizione created in 1921, although the bus design was not an exact replica.  You may also note that one of his paintings is featured hanging on the wall of another house featured late 1960's sitcom: "Green Acres", namely the one that belonged to Oliver and Lisa Douglas, but that's a different sitcom for another post.  That will be the background until I decide to replace it with something else. You might also have noticed the Pacman/ghosts at the top of the page, something else I "borrowed", too, but that's been in place since day one. Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the design (I've made considerable revisions to the layout I bought, and it's the revisions I'm happiest with) as it stands now.

Another Cast Reunion

Anyway, today's post started pretty much as a share of yet another cast reunion for the early 1970's ABC show "The Partridge Family" which helped to create a few teen idols, most notably David Cassidy. Most of the cast, however, became household names, some for their continued work in show business, others as examples of how child stars go bad (the one I'm referring to would later turn things around, but for a number of years, he spiralled into substance abuse and even homelessness). The latter being, of course, Danny Bonaduce, who became famous at the age of eleven in the series "The Partridge Family". In spite of his young age, Danny was the wisecracking redhead, who was a persistant bane of the family's band manager, Reuben Kincaid (portrayed by Dave Madden).  By the way, totally unrelated tidbit about Danny Bonaduce: he actually attended grade school in Los Angeles with actor Gary Coleman, the kid made famous by the sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes".

I'll get to the reunion in just a minute.

As noted, most of the cast were celebrities as a result of the show. The only exception was the woman who played Shirley Partridge (Shirley Jones), as she was already a star in her own right, having starred as the original characters in such Oscar and Hammerstein film classics as Oklahoma! (1955), Carousel (1956), and The Music Man (1962). Jones is also an academy award winner, although she became cemented in pop culture for her TV role as Mrs. Partridge on "The Partridge Family", even though the show ran for only four seasons. The Partidge Family became better known for its reruns in syndication as one of the earlier shows to go that route, but would be followed by many others.

In her personal life, Jones has two sons from her marriage to actor Jack Cassidy (Jack Cassidy died in 1976 in a fire caused by his cigarette which he fell asleep with, talk about tragedies, although he was already divorced from Jones by then, the reasons for the separation weren't made public, but Jack Cassidy was rumored to be gay), and Shirley Jones had adopted Jack Cassidy's son from a previous marriage who would go on to co-star with her on The Partridge Family (hence, David Cassidy is actually Jones' stepson, did you know that?) and became a teen idol as a result.

This isn't about Jones per se, but the fact is two of her kids would become mega-stars in the years that followed. David was the first, but younger brother Shaun would follow in his footsteps. My sister had a huge crush on Shaun for a time, but it was short-lived, as many youth crushes are.

Anyway, last year, NBC's Today Show continued a few reunions, one of which was the cast of "The Partridge Family". Shirley Jones couldn't make it, and Susan Dey, who resurrected her career more than a decade later with a stint on "LA Law" back in the '80s also skipped out, but all of the others (Suzanne Crough, Danny Bonaduce, David Cassidy, and Brian Forster) managed to attend.

For a period of time, NBC had the video available online, although the company's online video retention policy is unclear, but the page dedicated to that reunion can be found at http://www.today.com/id/35663539/ns/today-entertainment/t/get-happy-partridge-family-stars-reunite/ and the video was located at http://www.today.com/video/cmon-get-happy-partridge-family-reunited-436079683590.

"The Partridge Family" is actually running on right now on the Antenna TV network (see HERE), or you can get all four seasons on DVD.

With that, I can say the only other thing to do is visit this awesome website about "The Partridge Family" at http://cmongethappy.com/.  You can find out virtually everything about the show, and it even has the font for the show you can download for your computer (I used it to create this post's header) ... all free.  It's really awesome!

Now, C'mon Get Happy!!

Author P.S., April 28, 2015: Suzanne Crough-Condray, the actress who played the youngest daughter Tracy Partridge in the TV sitcom "The Partridge Family" about a musical family that ran on ABC in the early 1970s, passed away at the age of 52 due to cardiomyopathy.  Her obituary can be seen in the Los Angeles Times (see http://lat.ms/2cstLWK for the obituary), although at the time of her death, she was living in the Las Vegas area and had largely been absent from acting in the years that followed.  In the 2010 Today Show reunion, she said "I'm an office manager for Office Max.  I have two daughters, I'm married, I have a normal job."

Author P.S., November 21, 2017: Actor David Cassidy, who was best known as the actor/musician who played Keith Partridge on "The Partridge Family" passed away at age 67 today. Officially, the cause of death was liver failure (see the obituary at https://nyti.ms/2jNilUx for details), although he was admitted to a Broward County, Florida hospital prior to his passing, and was reportedly suffering from multiple organ failure (both his kidneys and his liver were failing). He became tired of being a teenage heartthrob, but his career in entertainment basically ended with "The Partridge Family". In an effort to spice up his squeaky-clean image, in 1972, he posed nude in a photo shoot by Annie Leibovitz for Rolling Stone, which was daring and did help him shed a puritan image, but it did very little to revive his career, and he ultimately ended up doing local dinner theater shows when Hollywood stopped calling. Like his father, he really struggled with alcoholism. He was arrested several times for driving drunk, and spent time in and out of rehab. Just before his death, he finally admitted to having liver disease caused by alcohol, which he called alcohol poisoning. In a way, his final admission of his many prior lies about his not having recovered from alcoholism was perhaps the first step towards recovery from addiction, but it came too late.