TLDR: During its four-season run from 1970 to 1974, The Partridge Family featured guest appearances from three future Charlie’s Angels stars, a future Oscar winner, a future Star Wars hero, and a future talk show royalty, all before any of them were household names. Farrah Fawcett appeared in the second episode ever aired. Jaclyn Smith made her television debut three episodes later. Jodie Foster punched Danny Bonaduce in Season 3. Mark Hamill played Laurie’s boyfriend. Cheryl Ladd rounded out the trio of future Angels in Season 4.
Television historians spend a lot of time talking about The Partridge Family as a show that made stars. David Cassidy became the biggest teen idol in the world.
Danny Bonaduce became a radio legend after a very long detour. What gets less attention is how many future stars passed through the Partridge house before anyone knew who they were.
Farrah Fawcett, Season 1, Episode 2
The second episode of The Partridge Family ever broadcast, “The Sound of Money,” aired on October 2, 1970. It featured a young woman billed only as “Pretty Girl” in the credits. The actress was Farrah Fawcett.
She appeared alongside Harry Morgan, who played a whiplash scammer named Whiplash Willie, in a brief but memorable role involving Danny and Reuben attempting to expose Willie’s fake injury.
Fawcett was 23 years old and had been working steadily in television for two years without breaking through. Her role was small enough that she received no character name.
Six years later, the poster of her in a red swimsuit would become the best-selling celebrity poster in history and she would be the most recognizable face in America.
The contrast is worth sitting with.
In October 1970, Farrah Fawcett was “Pretty Girl” with no lines of consequence in the second episode of a family sitcom. In 1976, she was Jill Munroe on Charlie’s Angels, one of the defining cultural images of the decade.
Jaclyn Smith, Season 1, Episode 5
Jaclyn Smith followed just three episodes after Fawcett. “When Mother Gets Married” aired October 23, 1970, and cast Smith as Tina, a much younger woman that Shirley’s old flame is caught buying an expensive diamond ring for, prompting the Partridge kids to suspect him of being a gigolo.
It was Smith’s first-ever television acting appearance. Six years later she became the only original cast member to stay for all five seasons of Charlie’s Angels, playing Kelly Garrett from premiere to finale.
Jodie Foster, Season 3, Episode 18
“The Eleven-Year Itch” aired on February 2, 1973, and featured an eleven-year-old girl named Julie Lawrence who develops an intense crush on Danny Partridge.
Julie punches Danny in the eye when the crush goes unrequited. The actress playing Julie was Jodie Foster, already a veteran of nearly three dozen television episodes and more than a year away from her starring role as Addie Pray in the television adaptation of Paper Moon.
Danny falls for Julie’s character in the episode, with Bert Convy playing her father, Richard Lawrence.
She was two years away from Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and three years away from Taxi Driver, which would make her one of the most discussed young actresses in Hollywood.
The girl punching Danny Bonaduce in a Season 3 episode of a family sitcom would go on to win two Academy Awards.
Three Future Charlie’s Angels
The most statistically improbable fact about The Partridge Family‘s guest star roster is that it features three of the five women who would define Charlie’s Angels between 1976 and 1980, all appearing before the show existed.
Farrah Fawcett appeared in Season 1, Episode 2.
Jaclyn Smith followed in Season 1, Episode 5.
Cheryl Ladd plays a girl Keith tries to date in “Double Trouble,” appearing in Season 4 before she replaced Fawcett as Kris Munroe on Charlie’s Angels in 1977.
Three of the five Angels passed through the same family sitcom before they were cast together on the show that made all of them famous.
Mark Hamill
Mark Hamill appeared in a Season 4 episode as Laurie Partridge’s boyfriend, four years before he played Luke Skywalker in Star Wars in 1977.
At the time he was a working television actor with no particular profile. His role in The Partridge Family was one of dozens of guest appearances he made in the early 1970s on shows including The Bill Cosby Show, The Manhunter, and General Hospital.
The Rest of the List
The guest star roster across four seasons reads like a catalog of American television history.
- Ray Bolger and Margaret Hamilton, the Scarecrow and the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz, both appeared.
- Louis Gossett Jr. appeared before his Oscar-winning career took off.
- Tony Geary, who would spend decades as Luke Spencer on General Hospital, appeared under the name Tony Geary in Season 4.
- Charlotte Rae, who would later play Mrs. Garrett on The Facts of Life, appeared.
- Nancy Walker, who would go on to star in Rhoda, appeared.
- Johnny Cash made an uncredited cameo in the pilot episode.
- Meredith Baxter, later the mother on Family Ties, made what cast members described as the most memorable guest appearance of the entire run.
- Gordon Jump, who would later play the station manager Arthur Carlson on WKRP in Cincinnati, made seven separate guest appearances across the show’s four seasons in minor roles.
For the full story of the permanent cast and what happened to them, see our Partridge Family cast where they are now.
Partridge Family Guest Stars: Frequently Asked Questions
Who did Farrah Fawcett play in The Partridge Family?
Farrah Fawcett appeared in Season 1, Episode 2, “The Sound of Money,” which aired October 2, 1970. She was billed only as “Pretty Girl” in the credits and had no named character. She appeared alongside Harry Morgan in a supporting role. She was 23 years old at the time. Six years later she became one of the most famous faces in the world as Jill Munroe on Charlie’s Angels.
What episode of The Partridge Family was Jodie Foster in?
Jodie Foster appeared in Season 3, Episode 18, “The Eleven-Year Itch,” which aired February 2, 1973. She played Julie Lawrence, an eleven-year-old girl with a crush on Danny Partridge who punches him in the eye when the crush goes unrequited. Foster was already a veteran of nearly three dozen television episodes at the time and went on to win two Academy Awards.
What episode of The Partridge Family was Jaclyn Smith in?
Jaclyn Smith appeared in Season 1, Episode 5, “When Mother Gets Married,” which aired October 23, 1970, just three episodes after Farrah Fawcett’s appearance. She played a character named Tina in what was her television acting debut, six years before she was cast as Kelly Garrett on Charlie’s Angels.
