Shaun Cassidy slams 'phony' late dad Jack Cassidy
The former teen idol says his father’s public persona masked the real man, as he and siblings reflect on a complicated family legacy
Shaun Cassidy, 66, has publicly called his late father, actor Jack Cassidy, "phony" and "not a good father" in a recent conversation with People magazine.
The Tony Award-winning actor died in an apartment fire in 1976 at age 49, and Cassidy says his father’s fame helped shape a public persona that included a British-sounding accent on talk shows that did not reflect the man he believed his father was. "He basically invented this public persona with an accent that didn’t exist in any country ever."
His recollections center on a family that included two younger brothers, Patrick and Ryan. "Patrick and Ryan and I would be like, 'What is up with this dude?'" Cassidy said, noting the accent sounded phony to the siblings and that "I’m not sure he ever really figured out who he was." The dynamic left Shaun feeling detached from the father anyone saw on television.
My mom did most of the fathering in the public eye, he added. "My mom showed up for a lot of that stuff, but she was also gone a lot. She was making movies around the world. I think one of the reasons she took 'The Partridge Family' job is because she wanted to be close to home."
Who they really are is not how they’re perceived by the public anyway, Shaun added. "If you grow up in a family of show folk, everything is very presentational." He recalled that when the family appeared in public, the expectation was for a certain image, and personal moments were scarce.
A striking detail for Cassidy is the way he remembers photos of his childhood. "I talked to my brothers about this the other day. I had very, very few photographs of our family just sitting around the living room. Almost all the pictures I have were taken by professional photographers, often for magazines." That separation between private life and public fame shaped his view of his parents as people, not as members of a star machine.
Jack Cassidy’s life included a second son, David Cassidy, from his first marriage to Evelyn Ward. David Cassidy, also a famous television and music figure, died in November 2017 from organ failure after years of alcoholism; he was 67. The brothers grew up in a household defined by show business, with their mother at the center of a high-profile family.
Yet Shaun stresses that his criticisms do not erase gratitude. "I wouldn’t have traded him for the world. I got so many gifts from him, so many." He also acknowledged the complexity of growing up in a family of screen and stage names, where perception sometimes obscures reality.
