Shirley admits she probably would not have married comedian Marty Ingels in 1977 had Jack lived. “He wanted to come back right up to the day he died,” Shirley shared in her 2013 autobiography, Shirley Jones: A Memoir. Later that night, Jack fell asleep with a lit cigarette and died in the fire. In 1976, she refused his invitation for drinks - and reconciliation. He said, ‘I still love you, but we have to part for a while.’ I was in tears.” Eventually, the Two Rode Together actress came to realize that she would never be able to change Jack, who descended deeper into alcoholism. The Grandma’s Boy actress believes that the stratospheric rise of The Partridge Family played a part in Jack’s asking to leave their marriage. Remembering ‘The Partridge Family’ - Take a Trip Down Memory Lane! “Some of my favorite memories were spending the afternoon with my mom, watching them do scenes and playing in the bus. I was about 7 and had a crush on the little tambourine girl, Suzanne Crough ,” Shirley’s son Ryan tells Closer. “I remember always wanting to go to the set with her.
“He would even come over to my house to help me out with my kids.” These were happy times. “David and I had a great thing going then,” she recalls of the singer, who passed away in 2017. “On The Partridge Family, I became the first working mom on TV.” Shirley also enjoyed acting opposite her stepson, David Cassidy, who was a product of Jack’s first marriage. “I was first offered the role of Carol on The Brady Bunch, but I didn’t want to be the mom pulling the roast out of the oven,” she explains. That’s when she decided to shift her career from films to television, so she wouldn’t have to travel for work. He drank heavily and indulged in infidelities with both women and men, as Shirley turned a blind eye.īy 1970, Shirley was a mother of three young sons, Shaun, 62, Patrick, 59, and Ryan, 55. “He also gave me an incredible sex life.” But their intense love was complicated by Jack’s bipolar disorder. “He was my first love and the love of my life,” she gushes. She confides that their marriage was passionate and all-consuming. As her career gained speed, so did her personal life. Four years later, Shirley proved her mettle as a dramatic actress, playing a vengeful prostitute in Elmer Gantry. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein would become the star’s mentors and make her the star of the film versions of two of their best musicals, 1955’s Oklahoma! and 1956’s Carousel. “Two weeks later, I was in my first Broadway show, South Pacific.” “I was a small-town girl and had no idea who Rodgers and Hammerstein even were,” confesses the Pennsylvania-reared star. Though gifted with a remarkable singing voice, teenage Shirley planned to become a veterinarian and only attended a Broadway audition on a whim. Remembering David Cassidy: See 'The Partridge Family' Cast Then and Now Marty was very Smart, bright, a great writer and was an incredible grandpa.” “Jack was handsome and a leading man, but he did comedy better, and that intrigued me. “I had a lot of boyfriends who were so boring to me,” she confides. A lot of laughter,” says Shirley, whose two former husbands, actor Jack Cassidy and comedian Marty Ingels, both tickled her funny bone. Her private life, in which Shirley is the matriarch of a big family with three sons (her stepson David Cassidy died in 2017) and 13 grandchildren, has also been filled with riches. Before you know it, you’ll be 87,” says the performer, whose career has taken her from the Broadway stage to the big screen to The Partridge Family, where she played TV’s favorite singing mom.
“You have to have a good time and enjoy life to the fullest. “I adored him as an actor and adored him as a person.”Īs she approaches her 87th birthday on March 31, Shirley feels grateful to have had so many extraordinary experiences. “Burt Lancaster was fantastic,” she tells Closer about her Gantry costar. The actress, who won an Oscar for 1960’s Elmer Gantry, admits that it is sweet to revisit all the wonderful costars she worked with over her 60-plus years as a singer and actress. In addition to spending time with her family, Shirley still gets a kick out of seeing her movies on TV.
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