TLDR: The Partridge Family ran on ABC from 1970 to 1974 and made David Cassidy the biggest teen idol in the world. What happened afterward was considerably more complicated. Cassidy died broke and alone in 2017 with last words of “so much wasted time.” Danny Bonaduce spent years homeless and addicted before rebuilding his life as a radio host and then surviving brain surgery in 2023. Shirley Jones, the stepmother who played the TV mother, is in her 90s and never regretted any of it.
For four years, The Partridge Family sold America a cheerful fiction: a widowed mother and her five musical children, traveling the country in a painted school bus, making hit records and solving problems before the credits rolled.
The real story of what happened to the people inside that fiction is considerably more interesting and considerably more sad.
David Cassidy
David Cassidy was the only cast member who actually sang on the records. His voice drove “I Think I Love You” to number one, and for a brief period in the early 1970s he was receiving more fan mail than anyone else in the world, including the President.
He spent the rest of his life trying to escape what that fame had made him.
He accumulated four DUI arrests, filed for bankruptcy in 2015, fabricated a dementia diagnosis in 2017 to hide his alcoholism, and died of liver and kidney failure on November 21, 2017, at 67.
His estate was $150,000. His last words were “so much wasted time.” His daughter Katie was cut from the will. His son Beau inherited everything.
Danny Bonaduce
Danny Bonaduce came from a physically abusive household where his television writer father told him “I never liked you enough to hit you.”
After the show ended he spent fourteen years largely homeless and addicted, living behind a dumpster near Grauman’s Chinese Theater and signing autographs for tourists who recognized him from the syndication reruns.
Cassidy intervened in the 1990s, giving him a job as his opening act on tour on the strict condition he stay sober.
The tour rehabilitated his reputation and launched his career as a radio host in major markets. In 2023 he underwent brain surgery for Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus after losing the ability to walk.
The surgery succeeded. He retired from broadcasting in December 2023 and lives in Palm Springs, where he now advocates for hydrocephalus awareness.
Shirley Jones
Shirley Jones won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1961 for playing a vengeful prostitute in Elmer Gantry. Nine years later she was America’s TV mom.
Her agents told her the show would destroy her film career. It did, and she never regretted it.
She was also David Cassidy’s real-life stepmother, having married his father Jack Cassidy in 1956 when David was six. Jack died in an apartment fire in 1976 after falling asleep drunk with a lit cigarette.
She married comedian Marty Ingels in 1977, a turbulent but enduring partnership that lasted until his death in 2015. She is in her 90s and publicly active.
She won an Oscar in 1961 playing a prostitute in Elmer Gantry, nine years before she became America’s TV mom. Her agents told her The Partridge Family would destroy her film career. It did, and she never regretted it.
Susan Dey
Susan Dey was seventeen with no professional acting experience when she won the role of Laurie Partridge.
During production she developed an unrequited romantic attachment to Cassidy that Shirley Jones warned both of them about.
After the show ended they briefly dated. Cassidy ended it and twenty years later wrote about her in his autobiography in terms she found deeply humiliating, including unflattering remarks about her appearance.
She never spoke to him again, never participated in any reunion, and made no public statement when he died in 2017.
She rebuilt her career as Grace Van Owen on L.A. Law, winning a Golden Globe in 1988.
She retired in 2004 and lives privately in Andes, New York, in the Catskills. Her net worth is estimated at approximately $10 million.
The Musical Reality
None of the cast except Cassidy and Jones made a sound on any of the records.
The instruments were all played by the Wrecking Crew. Bonaduce mimed bass guitar. Dey mimed piano. The three younger cast members mimed everything.
The cast never performed a single live concert together as a collective.
The full story of who actually sang and played on The Partridge Family records is more interesting than the fiction.
Jodie Foster and Farrah Fawcett
Two future stars appeared on the show before anyone knew who they were.
Jodie Foster guest-starred in Season 3 as a girl with a crush on Danny who punches him in the eye.
Farrah Fawcett appeared in the second episode ever aired, billed only as “Pretty Girl,” six years before Charlie’s Angels made her the most famous face in America.
Cheryl Ladd and Jaclyn Smith, two more future Angels, also appeared in guest roles.
The full guest star story is one of the more remarkable footnotes in 1970s television history.
The Partridge Family Cast: Frequently Asked Questions
What members of The Partridge Family have passed away?
David Cassidy died on November 21, 2017, at age 67 from liver and kidney failure caused by alcoholism. His father Jack Cassidy, who was connected to the show through his marriage to Shirley Jones, died in 1976 in an apartment fire. Other cast members including Suzanne Crough, who played Tracy Partridge, died in 2015 at age 52 from a medical condition.
How many actors from The Partridge Family are still alive?
As of 2026, the surviving core cast members include Shirley Jones, Danny Bonaduce, Susan Dey, Brian Forster, and Shaun Cassidy, who was not on the show but is David Cassidy’s half-brother. David Cassidy died in 2017. Suzanne Crough died in 2015.
Did David Cassidy and Danny Bonaduce get along?
During the show’s filming, their ten-year age gap kept them from being close. Their friendship deepened in the 1990s when Cassidy intervened in Bonaduce’s addiction, offering him a touring job on condition of sobriety that helped rebuild his career. After Cassidy’s death, Shaun Cassidy told Bonaduce: “David thought of you as his other brother.”
