David Cassidy Biography

David Cassidy’s starring role in the musical sitcom The Partridge Family made him one of the great teen heartthrobs of the 1970s.

David Cassidy was born in New York City, the son of actor and crooner Jack Cassidy and actress Evelyn Ward. His parents soon divorced and Jack Cassidy married actress Shirley Jones; their three children included another future star, Shaun Cassidy (born 1958). After graduation from high school, and helped along by his parents’ connections, David Cassidy moved to Los Angeles in 1969 to pursue a film career.

The Partridge Family launched in 1970; the show followed a struggling family band led by Shirley Jones as mom Shirley Partridge, and with David Cassidy cast as lead singer Keith Partridge. The show was a surprise hit, running for four seasons, and made David a star. When a single from the show, “I Think I Love You,” hit the charts in 1970, David Cassidy was suddenly a singing star as well.

The show ended after four seasons in 1974, and David Cassidy spent much of the 1970s as a teen pop idol, selling out concerts in venues like Madison Square Garden. His star faded in the 1980s, but he continued to take small TV and stage parts and release the occasional single. He struggled with alcohol and financial problems, and by the 1990s he was touring as a nostalgia act, sometimes performing with his fellow Partridge Family star Danny Bonaduce. In 2017, David Cassidy announced that he suffered from dementia, and retired from performing; later that year he died of multiple organ failure.

His 1994 memoir, C’Mon, Get Happy, took its title from the lyrics of the Partridge Family theme song.